The initial temptation is to blame the ground and say that West Ham United were sorely mistaken when they decided to leave Upton Park. The initial burst of optimism that greeted their move to the London Stadium has been replaced by an unmistakable sense of drift, on and off the pitch, and Slaven Bilic’s face was fraught with concern as he watched his ragged team slump to a deserved 3-0 defeat at the hands of Claude Puel’s sleek Southampton.
At this point, however, it would be a flimsy excuse for West Ham to claim that these are teething problems that anyone would experience in a new home. Their problems run deeper than that. They have conceded two or more goals in 15 of their past 23 matches, did not force Fraser Forster to make a single save in the Southampton goal and played with the louche air of a team that is yet to accept the severity of the situation.
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