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Chelsea hands out heavy beating to West Ham in Premier League without injured Palmer

Chelsea piled on the early season misery for West Ham and its under-fire manager Graham Potter by handing out a 5-1 thrashing in the Premier League on Friday, all without injured star Cole Palmer.

Palmer pulled out of the team at the last minute after getting hurt in the warmup, before Chelsea went a goal down in the sixth minute at the Olympic Stadium after a long-range piledriver from Lucas Paqueta.

It went quickly downhill from there for West Ham, which lost at promoted Sunderland 3-0 last weekend in the opening round and was beaten even more handsomely a week later.

Chelsea had five different scorers — in Joao Pedro, Pedro Neto, Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Trevoh Chalobah. Three of the goals came at corners, where West Ham’s marking was non-existent.

After Caicedo poked in the fourth goal in the 54th minute after West Ham goalkeeper Mads Hermansen flapped at an in-swinging corner, some home fans left the stadium.

A trickle of departing supporters turned into a flood from the 58th when Chalaboh hooked home a shot from close range for another goal from a corner.

Potter looked dejected on the sideline, with his position looking increasing uncertain after a poor end to last season by West Ham when the team finished 14th in the 20-team league.

There were boos at halftime and fulltime for West Ham and Potter, who coached Chelsea for seven months during the 2022-23 season before getting fired.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

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