Went to Upton Park yesterday quietly confident, expecting a draw at least. Great atmosphere from our end to begin with. I have never been to west ham before but thought it would be a lot louder, but it turned out that we outsung them for the majority of the first half. "You can shove your f***ing bubbles up your arse" , "Does the council pay your rent?" and " £2 an hour" were singing highlights. Hughesy lined up with a 442, bellamy and kuqi making their debuts. The game started quite comfortably for rovers, with the hammers rarely getting into the rovers half for the opening 15 mins. Then the goal! A corner kick from the left from pedersen was not cleared and then steered in by Andy Todd, a surprising goal scorer, but not a surprising goal. We built on this by not allowing the hammers into the game, without looking that dangerous ourselves. We came closest from a savage free kick that was cleared off the line after beating carroll. It was clear from the first half that it was an opening day fixture. Despite being in front we still looked very rusty. Todds passing was wayward, the axe didnt look comfortable at CB and just about coped with their grandad. Kuqi was inneffective upfront, and bellamy likewise (although it looked as though he was nowhere near fit, cant actually remember him breaking into a trademark sprint). I was still finishing my beer when the hammers equalised, but i still thought we would get something out of the game, with west ham not looking that great at the back. How wrong could i have been! The secong half was just absolute cack! We lost all organisation at the back and west ham looked dangerous with every attack, the width from etherington and the israeli offered them far more going forward than our own wideman. About 10 mins into the second half, hughes brought gresko on for the disapointing kuqi, reverting back to the 451 that served us so well last season. We started to get back into the game with gresko actually giving us width on the left, but despite the extra man in midfield we still managed to waste possesion repeatedly. Reid and savage being the biggest culprits, choosing to play difficult crossfield passes in our own half. However around the hour mark west ham scored thier second, reo coker smashing the ball into the net form the edge of the area giving friedal no chance, where was the defence? i still dont know! Hughes switched back to a 442 bringing dickov on, but to no avail as west ham scored again, from another defensive error this time from emerton. Then to cap the afternoon off Dickov got himself stupidly sent off for a two footed lunge on konchesky, what an idiot this guy is! So a really poor start to the season performance wise. Yes most of the team were awful, with only lucas having a half decent game. But its better to get this type of performance out of the way. The front two have taken a bit of stick, but they really did have no service. Neither emerton or pedersen got down the line and put a cross in from open play and savage and reids passing was awful. But is not all doom and gloom, i think gresko and nelsen coming back into the defence will shore us up and i think once fit bellamy will deliver. Personally i would put tugay back into the team and drop savage for the next game. I am confident the results will come!