I opened my first column last week by talking about the themed day at the Boleyn Ground.
Sadly, a recurring theme for West Ham fans continued on Saturday as Bournemouth left east London with all three points.
The honeymoon period for Slaven Bilic is over – and that is saying something.
It is still only August and, for a man who was always a favourite during his short playing days with the club, Bilic has used up pretty much all of the preloaded goodwill he had in the tank when he replaced the largely unpopular Sam Allardyce.
His tactics were booed, substitutions jeered, Bilic’s side was crying out for width in the defeat against Leicester yet the narrow midfield remained – much to the delight of Bournemouth duo Max Gradel and Matt Ritchie.
Not only a sluggish start but a dire opening 45 minutes saw the Irons 2-0 down at half-time once more.
The 10 minutes of rallying after the interval showed that the team can do it but their confidence is definitely lacking at the moment.
Bilic has not been helped by injuries to his forward line, or the continued ill-discipline of his side as Carl Jenkinson ended a dismal afternoon to become the fifth player sent off under the Croatian’s short reign.
But positive results could still have been achieved but Bilic showed naivety to stick with the diamond, to play Kevin Nolan as a centre-forward – or indeed at all – and to allow the same first-half performance as against Leicester.
He admitted afterwards he is already under pressure. He’s not going anywhere it has to be said but at least he has acknowledged that there is quite a lot to work on.
If he doesn’t add some pace and goals to his squad before the deadline on September 1st then I would be both surprised and worried on equal measure.
20 goals in four matches.
Quite the statistics for goalkeeper Darren Randolph.
He’s shipped 20 in 360 minutes of football against Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth but still came out to face the press after Saturday’s defeat.
Although visibly deflated, Randolph told us that he was now glad to see the back of the Cherries for a while and joked that he had never known a fellow goalkeeper pick up the club’s official man of the match after letting in four goals.
The Republic of Ireland international was signed as back-up to Adrian but put in a good performance on Saturday. It still probably won’t be enough to see him play more than 10 games during his Hammers career but at least his Premier League debut will be something to tell the grandchildren about one day.
– Mark Bryans writes for Press Association Sport and covers West Ham press conferences and matches on a regular basis. Follow him on Twitter @MarkyBryans
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