The Blues were excellent in the first 25 minutes at the London Stadium, pinning the Hammers back, creating several openings and taking the lead through Joao Felix’s clinical volley.

Unfortunately, West Ham equalised through Emerson Palmieri with one of their first attacks of note, and the game was more balanced thereafter, as shown by the final Expected Goals tally.

The early exchanges will have given Graham Potter hope his new-look attacking unit are starting to click, and the next challenge is replicating that quality of interchange and threat over the course of 90 minutes.

• Our take on the game

• Watch Potter's reaction

• Mixed emotions for Joao

Felix to the fore

Spearheading much of our best play was Joao Felix. The Portuguese, featuring for just the second time following his debut red card at Fulham, pulled the strings in a no.10 role behind Kai Havertz.

He had a licence to drift across the pitch and between the lines, depending on where we were mounting an attack. Look at Joao Felix’s heatmap below – he popped up all over the pitch.

No attacking player on the pitch spent more time on the ball than him (4.5 per cent possession) or had more touches than his 66.

He recorded a game-high three shots and was the only player to have more than one on target. Those figures don’t include his two attempts for the goal that was disallowed shortly before he did break the deadlock.

Joao Felix also played two key passes, a joint-high number for Chelsea players alongside Reece James, but it wasn’t just the work he is renowned for that impressed. His three successful tackles was a figure bettered only by Emerson, so it is no surprise the man on loan from Atletico was our Player of the Match.

Madueke offers fresh threat

On his full Chelsea debut, Noni Madueke was a livewire down the right flank. Only Ruben Loftus-Cheek - more on him later - was successful with more dribbles than the England Under-21 international’s four.

Madueke was comfortable taking his opposite man on, either cutting inside onto his stronger left foot or foraging down the outside, consistently combining nicely with Reece James. Their burgeoning relationship is one to watch.

Madueke had two shots, coming as close as anyone to regaining our advantage with a vicious whipped strike Lukasz Fabianski did well to paw away. He was also assured in possession, registering a 92 per cent pass completion rate despite his average position, no.31 below, being very high up the pitch.

Engine room lays foundation

Behind the front four, but also regularly willing to join in with them, were Enzo Fernandez and Loftus-Cheek. The stats underline the role they played in drawing the best out of those ahead of them.

As the average position map below shows, Ruben was slightly more advanced than the Argentinean and he was given a licence to drive forward with the ball, something he was successful at as proven by his game-high five completed take-ons.

Enzo was also willing to get on the ball, spending more time in possession (10.1 per cent) than anyone else on the pitch. Ruben ranked fifth in that metric behind James and the centre-backs.

The pair won five tackles between them and Enzo recorded two interceptions as they successfully broke up West Ham’s attacks before launching some of our own.

Enzo completed a game-high 86 successful passes, including the assist for Joao Felix’s goal, while few players were more accurate with the ball than Loftus-Cheek, who found a team-mate 93 per cent of the time. Enzo, who also had two shots, wasn’t far behind on 90 per cent.