West Ham and Chelsea drew 1-1 on the road in the Premier League on Saturday thanks to a last-minute VAR reprieve for Chelsea.
Tomas Soucek appeared to have given the Hammers a comeback victory in the 82nd minute, but a replay revealed Declan Rice was offside just before a crucial flick-on that kept Chelsea from suffering another loss.
Joao Felix’s well-worked opening goal on his return from suspension gave the Blues what was arguably their best opening quarter-hour since Graham Potter’s appointment.
Emerson Palmieri, a former Chelsea fullback, quickly equalized, and although the visitors dominated for the majority of the following hour, their struggles in front of goal meant they were at the mercy of VAR in the end.
West Ham struggled early on as a result of Chelsea’s determined start, but they managed to hold on after Joao Felix had a goal disallowed for offside.
He did, however, give the visitors the lead in the 16th minute by converting Enzo Fernandez’s curling cross from far left.
Soon after, West Ham lost Lucas Paqueta to a shoulder injury, but Kai Havertz’s goal that was later ruled out seemed to spark them into action.
And just before the half-hour mark, Emerson scored the equalizer after Jarrod Bowen flicked on a right-wing cross from Vladimir Coufal.
After the break, Chelsea regained momentum, but they found it difficult to create clear-cut opportunities.
Chelsea appeared to be going to pay for that for a moment.
Rice headed a free-kick delivery, and Soucek scored on the rebound, but the England player was obviously offside.
A few seconds later, West Ham narrowly avoided being penalized when Conor Gallagher’s shot hit the hand of the tumbling Soucek.
