Blues exploit deep-seated issues to thrash Hammers

“You can write what you want, at any time,” Graham Potter said, when asked if this is already a relegation battle.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

He admitted he “knows his responsibilities” when asked about his future.

From that, you could of course write at least some of the good from this 5-1 - like Joao Pedro’s supreme impact and how Chelsea might have now started a proper challenge.

Except, it’s impossible not to get away from the bad. And this was very bad from West Ham United, to the point that Potter looks in immediate danger. Might he even be gone before Nuno Espirito Santo? Could the Nottingham Forest manager replace him, given issues there?

West Ham certainly need basic defensive organisation. “You can’t concede goals like we did,” Potter said, as he referred to a second “smash on the mouth” after the opening weekend’s 3-0 defeat at Sunderland.

Here, the utter poverty of West Ham’s performance felt far more influential than Chelsea’s quality.

They were fortunate it wasn’t so much worse, since the “match” was essentially over as any kind of contest by the 33rd minute. That was the moment of Enzo Fernandez’s easy third, which was when many fans first started streaming out. Their absence was perhaps the only reason boos were not so loud by the end.

You could understand them. For everything to be this dismal just two games into a new season is almost cruel.

It wasn’t just how bad West Ham were, either. It was how many ways they found to be bad. They were bad at set-pieces. Three of the goals came through that route.