WHZ Stats & Tactics: Declan Rice set for huge game in West Ham clash v Chelsea
West Ham have the perfect chance to pile more misery on Frank Lampard’s Chelsea on Monday night when they make their way to Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea have lost both of their last two Premier League matches and sit just one point and one place ahead of eighth-placed West Ham after 13 games.
It will be a massive game between two London rivals with plenty of sub-plots. One of those will be Declan Rice running out at Stamford Bridge after being strongly linked with a move to Chelsea in the last transfer window.
According to The Athletic, the Blues could revive their interest in the 21-year-old midfielder in the January transfer window.
And even though we don’t want to see Rice leave any time soon – especially halfway into this season – it would be amazing if he can impress against Chelsea.
Lampard has some very talented attacking midfielders in his squad like Hakim Ziyech, Kai Havertz, Christian Pulisic and Mason Mount.
Rice will be key for West Ham in trying to keep those players quiet.
According to stats by WyScout, Rice has averaged 5.02 interceptions, 7.88 recoveries and 6.31 defensive duels per 90 minutes of Premier League football this season for the Irons.
Out of midfielders in the top-flight, he ranks fourth for defensive duel success [67.05%].
As you can see from the image of Rice’s Premier League heatmap below, the England international spends most of his game-time in his own half.
Next is an image that shows Chelsea players’ average positions in their recent 2-1 defeat at Wolves on Tuesday night. As you can see, there’s a big focus on players playing in the area where Rice’s heatmap is the brightest.
Chelsea also combined a lot of passes in that area of the pitch, further showing that Rice’s ability to cut out passes could be called into action on Monday night.
Chelsea rank second in the Premier League for progressive passes per 90 minutes [82.37]. Worryingly, three of the four players who’ve allowed the most progressive passes this term are West Ham players (Tomas Soucek, Jarrod Bowen and Pablo Fornals).
It means that Chelsea are likely to push the ball up the pitch quite easily against West Ham and Rice’s role in front of the back-four is going to be more important than ever.
Even though Chelsea have lost their last two matches and West Ham have shown nothing but a good run of form since game-week three, this is a very tough game.
Chelsea’s attacking players can carve apart some of the best sides in the league and we’ve all seen West Ham’s defence has its frailties.
But if Rice is able to show Lampard why he’s pushing so hard to sign him, the Hammers will stand a better chance of signing him.
We just don’t want him to play so well that Chelsea table a bid that cannot be turned down in the January window.
In other West Ham news, Frederik Alves has said goodbye to his team-mates at Silkeborg ahead of joining the Irons.