By Paul Lagan at Kingsmeadow Stadium
Chelsea Dev 1-1 West Ham U 23
The possible future players in Chelsea’s first team drew 1-1 at Kingsmeadow tonight against a strong, resolute West Ham United side.
The star for the west Londoners was Thierno Ballo who thumped home the equaliser late on but had a couple of chances to put the Blues out of sight.
The Hammers goal came from the boot of Sonny Perkins.
With an ever-changing financial landscape affecting the Blues after the UK government imposed sanctions on Russian owner Roman Abramovich, who knows what the make-up of next season’s first team will be.
A couple of these youngster might very well be part of that.
Thierno Ballo produced a wonderful acrobatic bicycle kick on six minutes, but unfortunately for the Blue, his effort was just over Kriszyian Hegyi’s crossbar.
A Harvey Vale left-footed beauty, was goal-bound, but the ball took a slight deflection away for a corner.
Ballo had a fine effort on 25 mo utes, that once more took a nick off a defender and sent the ball into the grateful arms of Hegyi.
Again the striker had a chance to score, this time, on 38 minutes but his first time dish-cutter zipped inches wide of West Ham’s left post.
There were no changes b either side at half-time/
West has first substitution on 56 minutes saw Will Greenidge come off and Levi Laing come on.
West Ham took the lead through a quick counter attack on 62 minutes when Sonny Perkins raced clear. He showed great composure to curl the ball around Sharman_Lewis and the ball nestled in the back of the net
Chelsea head coach Andy Myers responded by taking off Jayden Wareham and bringing on Malik Mothersille.
Dion Rankine produced a mazy run on 73 minutes and was unlucky with his shot which smashed off the West Ham right upright.
Chelsea got their deserved equaliser with 15 minutes left on the clock when Ballo smashed hime from close range, almost taking off the roof of the net.
The Hammers defender Jamel Baptiste was sent off right on the whistle for a foul on Sharman-Lewis and the game ended all-square at 1-1.
Teams: Chelsea, Sharman-Lowe, Hughes, Brooking, Humphreys, Williams, Simons, Rankine, McEachran, Ballo, Vale
Subs, Webster, Bergstrom, Haigh, Thomas, Mothersille
West Ham, Hegyi, Greenidge, Ferreira, Ekwah, Baptiste, Alessio, Chesters, Potts, Perkins, Appiah-Forson, Ono-Flex
Subs, Swyer, Kinnear, Diallo, Ling, Nevers