West Ham beat Chelsea 1-0 at the London Stadium to hand David Moyes his first Premier League home win of 2017, while his opposite number Antonio Conte's Chelsea have now dropped just 5 points less than the whole of last season.
Moyes' landmark victory was sealed by Marko Arnautovic, who scored his first goal for the Hammers with just six minutes on the clock. Alvaro Morata and Eden Hazard were both guilty of missing chances to rescue a point for Chelsea, whose title challenge is withering away quickly.
Despite the win, West Ham remain in the relegation zone but a first win in nine gives them a timely boost ahead of the busy Christmas period.
Arnautovic celebrates his goal with Noble
West Ham started brightest of the two teams and were deservedly ahead after just 6 minutes. Arnautovic played a one-two with Manuel Lanzini and slotted his first Hammers goal beyond Thibaut Courtois to send the home fans into raptures.
Chelsea took over and began to dominate possession but had to wait until 29 minutes for their first real attempts on goal as N'Golo Kante and Davide Zappacosta drew saves in quick succession from Adrian.
Conte wasn’t pleased with his wasteful attack and made some changes just after the break. He introduced Pedro, Victor Moses and Willian to try and shake it up, but it didn’t spark much.
Conte hasn't got a good record in London derbies
In fact, it was West Ham who came closest to finding the net as Arnautovic and the relentless Michail Antonio posed a threat on the counter attack.
Chelsea still dominated possession, and with West Ham wilting and starting to sit deeper, an equalizer seemed likely, but the closing stages Morata, who as been guilty of too many misses this season, was guilty again.
Having been played in by Kante, the Spaniard fired a glorious chance wide and then Hazard shot over a minute later as the Blues lost more ground with the two Manchester clubs.
Sources:
www.skysports.com
www.imgbb.com
