Di Canio brilliance outshines Chelsea's sparkling form

Chelsea 2 West Ham United 3

Chelsea's first defeat of the season and West Ham's first victory could be ascribed to the brilliance of Paolo Di Canio, the scorer of two bemusing goals, but the reality was that the Hammers gave Chelsea such a prolonged battering that a breathtaking match was actually won by their refusal to be depressed by their bottom place in the Premiership or cowed by Chelsea's high-flying position.

Graciously and rightly, Claudio Ranieri, the Chelsea manager, said: "I was right to say that I expected a difficult match, but they played better than us. They wanted to fight and to suffer.''

They also had Di Canio, whom the West Ham manager, Glenn Roeder, claimed wanted to be remembered at the end of his career as "a complete professional". Yet here, in only his fourth game in four months, he confirmed that he is a completely unpredictable magician who, on his day, can even upstage Chelsea's Gianfranco Zola. This was his day.

For all West Ham's bold talk about their miserable start to the season not being a true reflection of their abilities, the prospect of facing a Chelsea team starting to turn occasional brilliance into sustainable sparkle was not welcome. At least they must have been pleased with the news that Zola, the inspiration behind Chelsea's run to third place, had been left on the bench.

Anticipating the early snapping and snarling, Ranieri kept Zola out of it until he was really needed. West Ham rushed Chelsea out of their composure. Trevor Sinclair constantly bypassed Mario Stanic and the unfortunate early loss of Frédéric Kanouté, heavily tackled by Robert Huth and likely to be out for a month, seemed almost irrel-evant. After 20 minutes under pressure Chelsea attacked from the left. West Ham conceded a soft free-kick, Boude-wijn Zenden lifted it across the penalty area and Scott Minto held Huth. The referee immediately gave a penalty, which was converted forcefully by Jimmy Hasselbaink.

West Ham deserved to pull a goal back five minutes before half-time. Di Canio's corner brought a snap-shot from Sinclair and the ball moved on to Steve Lomas. He shot past Carlo Cudicini, who had previously saved superbly well from Michael Carrick.

In spite of fine, considered defending by Huth, Chelsea's rearguard looked vulnerable. Even so, they could hardly be faulted when, two minutes into the second half, Di Canio exceeded even his own high standards of unpredictable brilliance. The ball came loose on the fringe of the area, he flicked it up with his right foot and volleyed it beyond Cudicini with his left.

If at that point West Ham had kept on the attack they could have made life easier. As it was, Ranieri brought on Zola who quickly guided everyone else, including Hasselbaink, who had a huge drive scrape the post.

The game raced from being absorbing to pulsating. David James saved from Mario Melchiot and Hasselbaink before Zola made his first serious intervention. His ability to find space gave Chelsea the ideas that until then were slow to develop. Minto brought him down but insisted it was a dive. Zola swung the free-kick beautifully over James.

And still Di Canio had more to say. With seven minutes left he collected the ball in the area from Defoe, got behind Melchiot and William Gallas and somehow threaded a shot between keeper and near post.

Chelsea 2
Hasselbaink pen 21, Zola 74

West Ham United 3
Defoe 40, Di Canio 48, 84

Half-time: 1-1 Attendance: 38,929