Liam Rosenior’s Chelsea side welcomed London rivals, West Ham to Stamford Bridge as the Blues looked to climb into the Premier League top four, in what proved to be a thrilling comeback performance.
Here’s four things we learnt as Chelsea looked to add to Rosenior's faultless Premier League form.
Making hard work of easy fixtures
An almost entirely refreshed backline from the Blues’ midweek victory away to Italian champions, Napoli, proved to be costly.
A backline featuring Jorrel Hato, Benoit Badiashile, Trevoh Chalobah and Malo Gusto failed the Blues’ system as two easily preventable first half goals from the visitors, provided Chelsea with a steep mountain to climb.
It was the first time the back four had ever played together in a competitive encounter and it is fair to say that it simply didn’t work.
Most notably, mistakes from Badiashile and Hato resulted in early substitutions for the defensive duo and likely putting them out of favour for Tuesday’s Carabao Cup semi- final second leg clash against Arsenal.
Rosenior's bravery rewarded
Both West Ham goals from Jarrod Bowen and Crysencio Summerville came as a result from poor defensive play on the left flank.
Rosenior identified this at an early stage and replaced Hato with Marc Cucurella, Alejandro Garnacho with João Pedro and Badiashile with Wesley Fofana at half time.
These brave substitutions from Rosenior paid off, as Fofana made an important driving run forward, before delivering a sublime ball into the visitors penalty area to find the lurking head of João Pedro, who netted home a carefully directed header to put a Chelsea shaped dent in West Ham’s lead.
Only 13 minutes later, Marc Cucurella took a leap of faith as he lunged at a Liam Delap crossbar deflection to pull the game level with a spectacular diving header.
However, Chelsea’s super substitutes were far from finished as João Pedro laid off a clinical pass to the feet of Enzo Fernandez, who found the net in the 92nd minute to complete a well deserved Chelsea comeback win.
Pedro revitalised under new management
Having scored twice in the midweek Champions League encounter in Italy, Joao Pedro continued his fine form as he came off the bench at the break.
12 minutes after entering the field of play, the forward found the net, in what proved to be a vital headed goal. The goal proved to flip the run of play entirely in favour of the home team. This was followed by a clever stoppage time assist from Pedro which ultimately sealed the full three points for Chelsea.
This takes the Brazilian marksman's tally up to six goal contributions in six games under Rosenior, as he begins to find his form across all competitions for the Blues.
Rosenior’s team building shines
The English manager recently introduced team building exercises that encouraged his players to get to know each other and bond on a deeper level, and this appears to be working as a brawl in the 100th minute of the game saw the true togetherness of this Chelsea side shine through.
Following an incident involving Cucurella, a physical encounter broke out between the two sides which saw the entire Chelsea team run to each other's defence, including the ever-placid Cole Palmer, who was caught up in the action.
This on-field scuffle resulted in opposition defender Jean-Clair Todibo seeing red for his violent actions.