Chelsea are viewed as clear favourites by the Opta supercomputer to triumph on their short hop to West Ham on Friday. Look ahead to this Premier League game at the London Stadium with our West Ham vs Chelsea prediction and preview.
West Ham vs Chelsea: The Key Stats
The Opta supercomputer ranks Chelsea as the overwhelming favourites with a 54.6% win probability to West Ham’s 22.0%.
The Hammers have collected just nine points from as many home games played under manager Graham Potter.
Chelsea have only beaten Tottenham (37) more times in the Premier League than they have West Ham (32).
Graham Potter will be all too aware of the need to find some home comforts as his West Ham United side welcome his former club Chelsea to the London Stadium on Friday on Matchday 2 of the 2025-26 Premier League campaign.
The Englishman lasted less than seven months in the dugout at Stamford Bridge before being dismissed in April 2023 and has endured a mixed start in east London since being appointed in January.
West Ham started their campaign with a humbling 3-0 defeat at Sunderland last weekend and will need to improve on an underwhelming home record under Potter to bounce back here.
Sunderland v West Ham stats
The Hammers have won only two of the nine home Premier League games they have played under Potter (D3 L4), picking up just nine points. Indeed, no West Ham manager has won fewer than 10 points in their first 10 home games in the competition, with Alan Curbishley and Avram Grant both earning the lowest with 10.
West Ham have started a Premier League season with consecutive defeats on eight previous occasions, doing so most recently in 2022-23. Only Southampton have lost each of their first two matches of a Premier League season on more occasions (nine).
Jarrod Bowen will hope to be the man to inspire West Ham to victory over their rivals and the England forward has scored three goals in his previous four London derbies. Only four West Ham players have managed to find the net in three consecutive London derbies, with Michail Antonio the most recent to do so in 2019.
Mads Hermansen shipped three goals on his Irons debut and has just one clean sheet from 28 Premier League appearances (3.6%), representing the joint-second lowest rate of any goalkeeper to play 20-plus games in Premier League history. He is ahead of only Wes Foderingham (3.3%), one of his back-ups at the London Stadium.
Chelsea were frustrated in their opening contest of the season as they played out a goalless draw with Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge, despite managing 19 shots. The Blues have not failed to score in their opening two league matches of a campaign since 1995-96, where they started with back-to-back stalemates.
The result meant Chelsea have now gone three Premier League games without conceding for the first time since February 2023. They last had a longer run in March 2021, when they went four without allowing a goal against.
Chelsea completed the joint-most passes of any side on MD 1 (510, same as Manchester City) and since Enzo Maresca took charge only Liverpool (13) and Man City (23) have completed 500 passes in more Premier League games than the Blues (12). Converting that possession into goals was the issue last Sunday, however.
Estêvão will hope to make his full Premier League debut after a lively outing off the bench against Palace. The prodigious Brazilian talent made more dribbles than any other Chelsea player in that game (six) despite only coming on in the 54th minute. It was the most by a Chelsea debutant since Raheem Sterling against Everton in August 2022 (also six).
Estevao dribbles v Crystal Palace
West Ham will still be without winger Crysencio Summerville for this fixture due to a hamstring issue, while George Earthy is a doubt.
For the visitors, Tosin Adarabioyo will hope to recover from the knock that saw him miss Chelsea’s season-opener, but Levi Colwill is out with a long-term knee issue, while Benoît Badiashile and Roméo Lavia are also unavailable.
West Ham vs Chelsea Head-to-Head
Chelsea have emerged victorious in five of their previous seven Premier League encounters with West Ham (D1 L1).
Overall, the Blues have 32 wins in the competition against their London rivals, a record they can only better against Tottenham (37 wins).
West Ham have a decent recent record in home encounters with Chelsea, though, winning four, drawing two, and losing two of the last eight such encounters.
They did, however, suffer a 3-0 defeat at the London Stadium in last season’s corresponding fixture. They last suffered consecutive home league losses against Chelsea in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 campaigns.
West Ham vs Chelsea Prediction
West Ham are up against it on Friday according to the Opta Supercomputer, which rates the hosts’ chances at 22.0% from the 10,000 pre-match simulations conducted.
By contrast, Chelsea are rated at a 54.6% probability of emerging with all three points, while the draw occurred on 23.4% of occasions.
With the season still in its infancy, the overall outlook is still a little scattered but Chelsea’s most likely outcome is to finish fourth (11.6%).
West Ham’s situation is predicted to be a little more dire, with 19th an 11.2% probability, though their scenarios are still quite tight-knit in terms of where they are expected to place.
West Ham vs Chelsea Prediction Opta Supercomputer
West Ham vs Chelsea Predicted Lineups
West Ham United: Mads Hermansen, Jean-Clair Todibo, Max Kilman, Nayef Aguerd, James Ward-Prowse, Guido Rodríguez, El Hadji Malick Diouf, Lucas Paquetá, Jarrod Bowen, Niclas Füllkrug.
Manager: Graham Potter
Chelsea: Robert Sánchez, Reece James, Josh Acheampong, Trevoh Chalobah, Marc Cucurella, Enzo Fernández, Moisés Caicedo, Pedro Neto, Cole Palmer, Jamie Gittens, João Pedro.
Manager: Enzo Maresca
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 10,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off at London Stadium on Friday night, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Premier League Stats Opta
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