Daily WHUFC News - 18th March 2013

Big Sam frustrated by Chelsea blank
WHUFC.com
Manager left frustrated after West Ham United's failure to score at Chelsea
results in 2-0 defeat
17.03.2013

Sam Allardyce thought his West Ham United side could have caused Chelsea a
headache had they brought their shooting boots along to Stamford Bridge on
Sunday. The Hammers boss was impressed by the quality of delivery supplied
from Matt Jarvis on the left flank throughout the derby duel, but frustrated
that more was not made of his crosses. In the end a goal either side of the
break from Frank Lampard and Eden Hazard was enough to give an impressive
Chelsea side a comfortable 2-0 victory, but Allardyce was left wondering
what might have happened had the visitors stuck one of their openings away.
"I'm disappointed we haven't scored," he said. "Chelsea is a very difficult
place to come to and you have to maximise the opportunities you get. "Matt
Jarvis' service into the box today was really, really good and unfortunately
we didn't have any goals on the end of that. "We had one struck off, which I
thought was a really soft foul. I'm not so sure that if it had been outside
the box he'd have given it. Then Andy's had a header a couple of minutes
later that went wide. There were two more in the second half, all from Matt
Jarvis. "He was our biggest threat today, every time we got him the ball
today he skinned the full back. He put the ball where he should do, in the
right areas with the right quality, but again the old Achilles heel for us
of not scoring away from home has risen again. "These kind of chances at
Chelsea are difficult to come by, so when you do get them you have to punish
the opposition and score them. At the moment we're not doing that."

Lampard's 19th minute opener - his 200th goal for the Blues - was all the
home side had to show from their efforts before the break as Demba Ba's
wasteful finishing allowed the Hammers to approach the second half with hope
they could turn the situation around. And although Hazard's strike, five
minutes after the restart, quashed that to a large extent, Allardyce could
not attach any blame to his defenders for not stopping the Belgian from
notching the second. He added: "I will criticise my players if they deserve
to be criticised, but you can't stop Eden Hazard, he's that good. When he
decides he wants to skip past players, with the ability he's got, he's good
at kidding the defenders with what they think he's going to do. He doesn't
do that, he throws them off balance and then skips past them again. "He can
finish, he's two-footed, he's quick, he plays really well in tight
situations, so I thought it was a really hard job for us to handle him. They
were a better side than us, but based on how much they've spent it's no
wonder really. "We tried to hang on, we had some opportunities, but if we
don't keep a clean sheet away from home, we don't win - that's our Achilles
heel."

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Hammers fall to derby defeat
WHUFC.com
Chelsea notch in either half to defeat West Ham United 2-0 at Stamford
Bridge on Sunday
17.03.2013

A goal either side of half time was enough for Chelsea to see off West Ham
United's challenge in the London derby at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Frank
Lampard, inevitably, was on the spot to head Chelsea into a 19th minute lead
and notch his 200th Blues goal in the process. The Hammers found it tough to
make their mark in possession and were grateful for some wasteful finishing
from Demba Ba for keeping the score at one before the break. Their hopes of
imposing themselves more on the contest after the break were dealt a blow by
Eden Hazard's strike five minutes after the restart as the Blues avenged
their defeat at Upton Park in December. Chelsea wasted a golden chance to
land an early hammer blow when Ba mishit his shot well wide of the mark in
the seventh minute, having got goalside of James Collins to run clear on
goal after Lampard supplied the pass. The Hammers almost did Chelsea's work
for them seven minutes later when Ramires crossed dangerously from the left
and Collins, facing his own goal, headed the ball into a grateful Jussi
Jaaskelainen's midriff.

West Ham were struggling to get a grip of the game and Chelsea made them pay
by moving into a 19th minute lead. The visitors may have thought the chance
had passed when Jaaskelainen beat Hazard's stinging shot away, but the
Belgian picked up possession again and stood up a cross for an unmarked
Lampard to head home from ten yards. The travelling Hammers contingent
thought their side had drawn level five minutes later when Matt Jarvis
chased down a ball in the left channel and hooked back a cross towards Andy
Carroll, who controlled on his chest and fired home, but referee Michael
Oliver spotted a push from the big Geordie on David Luiz and the
celebrations were short-lived. Luiz forced a low save from Jaaskelainen with
a free kick from the edge of the box, while Victor Moses fired a foot wide
following a Cesar Azpilicueta cross as Chelsea kept up the pressure. The
hosts really should have gone into the break with a more comfortable
advantage as Ba twice spurned one-one-one chances, Jaaskelainen saving well
on both occasions to keep his side in it. However, the resistance wasn't to
last long after the restart as the irrepressible Hazard collected possession
from Juan Mata in the right channel and danced inside Winston Reid before
drilling into the bottom right hand corner.

The Blues were keeping the heat on and Mata almost turned goalscorer moments
later, surging into the box but having his path to goal blocked by
Jaaskelainen. West Ham seemed to weather that early second half surge,
although Ba did go close again 11 minutes from the end when he took too long
over his shot and Reid got across to block. Former Chelsea striker Carlton
Cole came off the bench with ten minutes to go as West Ham bolstered their
attacking options, and he almost pulled one back within four minutes of his
introduction, but Petr Cech dived to his right to cling onto the No9's
header after Jarvis crossed from the left. At the other end Jaaskelainen
clawed away a Hazard effort, which took a nick off Joey O'Brien and skipped
up off the turf, but Chelsea's work had already been done as they kept their
bid for a top three finish on track.

Chelsea: Cech; Azpilicueta, Cahill, Luiz (Terry 78), Cole; Ramires, Lampard;
Hazard, Mata (Mikel 85), Moses (Oscar 70); Ba
Subs: Ivanovic, Torres, Turnbull (GK), Bertrand
Goals: Lampard 19, Hazard 50

West Ham United: Jaaskelainen; Demel, Collins (Tomkins 61), Reid, O'Brien;
Vaz Te (C.Cole 80), Collison, O'Neil, Diame (Taylor 46), Jarvis; Carroll
Subs: McCartney, Pogatetz, Chamakh, Spiegel (GK)
Booked: Reid, Demel
Attendance: 41,369

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Chelsea 2 West Ham 0
17 March 2013
Last updated at 20:22
By Saj Chowdhury
BBC Sport

Frank Lampard scored his 200th goal for Chelsea who moved into third place
with a win over West Ham. The Blues dominated the match at Stamford Bridge
and took the lead in the first half when Lampard nodded in Eden Hazard's
through ball. Hazard added a second after the break when he cut in from the
right and arrowed a strike past the reach of Hammers goalkeeper Jussi
Jaaskelainen. Chelsea should have won by more, but Demba Ba wasted several
chances.

Ba found himself in a one-on-one with Jaaskelainen. Luckily for the former
Newcastle striker, Chelsea's midfielders bailed him out with outstanding
individual performances. The veteran of that pack, Lampard, will steal the
headlines, but it was Hazard who was the star performer. The Belgium
international, who signed from Lille for about £32million last summer, was
the catalyst for many of the Blues' attacks and produced a sublime goal.
Hazard's first telling contribution saw him fire in a wicked shot that West
Ham's Finnish keeper could only fist back into play. The ball eventually
came back to Hazard on the edge of the area and his lofted pass was met with
a firm header by Lampard. The England international is now only two goals
away from equalling Bobby Tambling's club record tally.

Lampard scored his goal at the end where the away fans were sitting. He
celebrated with substitute John Terry, who was warming up in that section of
the ground, as objects were thrown from the crowd in their direction. It's
12 years since the Blues last lost a Premier League home game in the month
of March, a 4-2 defeat against Sunderland in 2001 The Metropolitan Police
later confirmed they were investigating incidents of coin throwing, but that
no arrests had been made. Blues manager Rafael Benitez handed Victor Moses a
start, and the former Wigan player narrowly failed to add to the home side's
lead when his shot drifted wide. Central defender David Luiz also made
forays forward, forcing a low save from Jaaskelainen, before striking a
spectacular volley that screamed past the bar.

Chelsea finally got their second after the break, when Hazard teased his
markers on the right, played a one-two with Juan Mata, before racing into
the area and firing low inside the Hammers near post. It was a strike
befitting of his classy performance. Hazard could have added to his tally
but was denied by Jaaskelainen and a block from Joey O'Brien. West Ham did
not cause much worry in the Chelsea defence. They did have the ball in the
net when Andy Carroll slotted in after winning a jostle with Luiz, but
referee Michael Oliver penalised the ex-Newcastle man for pushing the
Brazilian.

Carroll won several aerial battles in the area but his headers were tame. It
was not until the final five minutes that the Hammers created their best
chance when substitute Carlton Cole forced Petr Cech to dive low to keep out
his poked effort. Chelsea's 16th win of the season moves them a point above
Tottenham, who earlier lost to Fulham, and to within four points of
second-placed Manchester City. Benitez's side have a run of six games in two
weeks when they resume after the international break on 30 March, but recent
performances suggest they have the personnel to cope.

Chelsea manager Rafael Benitez: "It was a good game, a great results, Frank
scored his 200th, the team is third so it's a great week and a good moment
for us. "It is a long race, we have to carry on and win our next game and
see what others do. "In the first half, we could have scored two or three
goals. You have to be pleased because we scored two goals and kept a clean
sheet. We have to be a little disappointed because we could have finished it
earlier. "Demba Ba is a great finisher and today it was not his day. "We
will approach it one game at a time. We have to relax now and not get any
injuries after the international break."

West Ham manager Sam Allardyce: "Sometimes, you come to places like this and
you have to hope the top players are not on song, but young Eden Hazard made
life extremely difficult for us. The quality of the players in that area,
including Juan Mata, with the support of Frank Lampard, was too much for us
on the day. "We had a couple of chances and you have to try and put them in
the net. We did not do that and we have suffered for it. They deserved to
win and we have to accept that. It is not going to define our season,
beating them once is enough, beating them again would just be greedy. "Andy
Carroll had a couple of chances, and we would expect him to hit the target.
If we get to 2-1, they might panic. The free-kick given for the disallowed
goal on David Luiz was soft.
"Their second was brilliant. Hazard's trickery, pace and quality of
finishing, the defenders could not cope with it. "We would like six points
and get to 39 points as quick as we can."

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Chelsea 2-0 West Ham United
KUMB.com
Filed: Sunday, 17th March 2013
By: Staff Writer

West Ham slipped to a predicatable defeat at Stamford Bridge this afternoon
- a defeat aided by predictably one-sided refereeing.

Today it was Michael Oliver's turn to come to the aid of the wealthier club
in order to preserve the Premier League's status quo - and Andy Carroll the
one to suffer as a result.

Little will be made of it elsewhere but had Carroll's perfectly legitimate,
first half strike been allowed to stand it may well have made for a
different game, with Chelsea 1-0 up through Frank Lampard's 19th-minute
opening goal at the time.

As it was, Eden Hazard's effort five minutes after the break was enough to
see the home side take all three points with a comfortable 2-0 win.

The controversial moment came just three minutes after Lampard had taken
advantage of some poor defending by West Ham to nod the Blues into a
19th-minute lead with his 200th goal for the west London club.

Matt Jarvis did incredibly well to retain possession on the left wing before
centreing the ball for the advancing Carroll, who eased away from marker
David Luiz before poking the ball over the line.

However match official Oliver - the Premier League's youngest referee at
just 28 - immediately flagged for an infringement, presumably for a
non-existent foul on Luiz, much to Carroll's bemusement.

Of course it had been a similar story at the Boleyn Ground earlier in the
season when Kevin Nolan saw a perfectly legal 'goal' wiped out by Martin
Atkinson in the corresponding fixture - even if West Ham eventually righted
that particular wrong by going on to win 3-1.

And whilst few will be surprised at the perceived bias, once again there was
further clear evidence that the Premier League's chosen officials are geared
towards favouring the league's wealthier entities.

In addition to Carroll's 'goal', the decision to award a free-kick against
Jarvis when he shrugged off his marker to leave him one-on-one with Petr
Cech also left a bad taste in the mouths of West Ham fans who had made the
short sojourn across town.

Of course, to blame today's defeat entirely on the referee would be
churlish; West Ham, a freshly-promoted team created from the cast-offs of
others and second division players were unsurprisingly second best on the
day to a team stuffed with multi-million pound internationals.

Despite that, United gave a good account of themselves in the opening half
and but for a little more luck (plus a higher standard of refereeing) could
have gone into the break on level terms with Carroll and Collins both
enjoying good chances.

However the second half was virtually one-way traffic and Hazard's goal five
minutes after the restart - the result of a clever one-two with Juan Mata -
was the very least Chelsea deserved from an efficient, if not top-class,
second half performance.

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Sam Allardyce admits Chelsea deserved derby win over West Ham
Last Updated: March 17, 2013 9:47pm
SSN

Sam Allardyce admits Chelsea deserved their victory in the London derby
against his West Ham side on Sunday afternoon. Frank Lampard's 200th career
goal for the Blues and a second-half strike from the lively Eden Hazard saw
the Hammers go down 2-0 in West London. Allardyce would have liked to have
seen his Hammers team sneak a goal but admits Chelsea were too good, with
Hazard and Juan Mata causing particular problems in midfield. "Overall, yes
they deserved to win, but I'm a little disappointed that we might have just
sneaked one and just seen how they handled it," he told Sky Sports. "I
think, at the end of the day, Chelsea are a top, top side and were in good
form today, especially the clever players. We had a lot of trouble trying to
cope with them today.
"But it doesn't define our season playing against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge
and losing." The defeat leaves West Ham 14th in the table with 33 points and
Allardyce is keen to reach the 39-point mark sooner rather than later to
avoid being dragged into the relegation mire. On their points target this
season he added: "I'd say 39, because it's the average over the last 10
years. It probably might be 38, who knows, but all we want to do is get to
it as quickly as we can and have a few games left if we can because that
would mean that we would finish in a position in the league well clear of
the bottom four, and that's what we want to try and do."

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Cops investigate coin thrown at Lamps 'n Co in Hammers clash
The Sun
By MARK IRWIN
Published: 17th March 2013

FRANK LAMPARD was pelted with coins as he celebrated his 200th Chelsea goal
against his former club. Sub John Terry was also hit by a coin thrown by a
West Ham fan as he warmed up. Cops are probing the incidents and Lamps said:
"I wasn't hit by anything but I went quite close to the West Ham fans — it
was the natural curve of my run!" Chelsea's interim boss Rafa Benitez
insisted Lampard, 34, did not deliberately incite Hammers fans who booed and
abused him. He said: "When you score your 200th goal, you don't think about
where you run. You just celebrate. "Afterwards, he realised it would be
better to be in another part of the ground but I don't think he was hit by a
missile. "Referee Howard Webb said it would be better if the subs warmed up
the other way. It was his decision."

A West Ham spokesman said: "We will be working with Chelsea to investigate
the reports of missile throwing during Sunday's game. "Any individual found
to have acted in an inappropriate way will have to face the consequences of
their actions, including the possibility of a ban from attending future
matches."

West Ham boss Sam Allardyce insisted: "I didn't see anything of the incident
because it doesn't interest me. "All that interests me is how Frank Lampard
sneaks into the box without anyone noticing. Outside that, I don't see
much." No supporters were arrested or ejected from Stamford Bridge but
police were last night examining CCTV footage of the incident and both clubs
could face FA action. A Met Police spokesperson said: "We are investigating
instances of coin-throwing. "There have been no arrests. Inquiries
continue."

Lampard, out of contract this summer, scored with a 19th-minute header and
Eden Hazard made certain of victory with a second-half strike to take
Chelsea up to third. The Blues were involved in a similar incident against
West Ham back in October 2004 when their striker Mateja Kezman was cut by a
coin thrown from the Hammers supporters.

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Money for nothing: West Ham's Andy Carroll putting it all in but getting
nowt out
The Mirror
17 Mar 2013 22:30

Andy Carroll deserves more than to be remembered as the catalyst for the
biggest move in British football. But on a day which saw the most expensive
player in the history of the Premier League consigned to the bench, the
second on the list suffered another one of those days as well in West Ham's
2-0 defeat by Chelsea. Fernando Torres has, of course, received the
attention a £50million transfer brings, at times becoming something of a
laughing stock. Yet compared to Carroll's record of just 14 club goals since
he went to Anfield for £35m, greasing the wheels for the Spaniard's move to
Chelsea, Torres, with 29 to his credit, has been a sparkling success.
Carroll's commitment at Stamford Bridge could not be dismissed. Indeed, from
the first minute, when he drew a foul from David Luiz, to the last, when he
headed over the bar, the Geordie gave everything despite being horribly
isolated. But to no avail, no reward, nothing in the bank of goals that all
strikers are defined by. There was a brief moment of delight when he slotted
home in the first half, instantly cut short when Michael Oliver spotted the
nudge on Luiz in the process.

"Technically, it was a foul," said Hammers chief Sam Allardyce. "But I could
show you about four outside the box he didn't give today. It was a brilliant
dive from David Luiz. Allardyce, though, conceded he "would have expected
Andy to score at least one" from the other chances, three headers that
missed the target, and a run from half-way which ended with a swerving shot
that was kept out by Petr Cech. The chances of West Ham taking up the option
to turn the loan deal into a permanent contract appear to be dissipating, as
Allardyce hinted. "I'm disappointed for Andy that he's not scored," added
the Upton Park boss. "He was a handful, like we know he can be but he
doesn't have a goal to show for it. "His hold-up play was really good,
creating space for us. He just needs to put goals on the end of it. "If he
keeps shooting and getting in the right positions, the goals will come. But
I want them to come in the game against West Brom, the next time we play.
"We're running out of games for Andy to start scoring. Let's hope he gets a
few between now and the end of the season. I can't enter into any other
discussions until we're safe."

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