This was supposed to be the season West Ham joined the big-game hunters, but it is unravelling into a Cockney rabble.
The Two Daves and Auntie Karren delivered their move to a nice rented home, and the Hammers were planning to go on a European tour after hanging on to pied piper Dimitri Payet .
But fans are fighting each other in the Taxpayers Stadium and, on the pitch, manager Slaven Bilic is facing a defensive meltdown he branded “amateurish.”
West Ham have become the first English side to establish a Romanian bogey team, and 50 years after the club’s holy trinity of Moore, Hurst and Peters won the World Cup, they have taken to losing 4-2 every week by way of tribute.
England boss Sam Allardyce was driven out of the East End because pearly kings demanded football as shiny as the sequins on their suits, and Bilic has restored the ‘West Ham way’ at the academy of football: Stylish, open, drives you mad.
If it is too early to talk of crisis, the yelping will be unbearable if Accrington Stanley roll out both barrels in the League Cup on Wednesday night.
At least Bilic had the decency to pull no punches after the Hammers squandered 71 per cent possession.
He admitted: “I know what I believe to be the West Ham way – you defend as a unit, like brothers, to be solid and tough men, and then you do it with skill and quality.
“We were doing that for the majority of last season but are not doing it. The first goal was nothing to do with the structure of the team and the fourth one was a bit amateurish.”
West Ham were negligent, incompetent and plain useless at the back as Albion’s £13million record signing Nacer Chadli decorated his home debut with two goals and assists for Salomon Rondon and James McClean. Manuel Lanzini and Michail Antonio replied.
West Brom 4-2 West Ham
West Brom were clinical, and their first home win under Tony Pulis since March has probably delayed his walk to the end of the plank after the Baggies passed into Chinese ownership last week.
Defender Jonny Evans said: “Our performance shows we are fighting for him.”
