Better, but not quite what West Ham fans, Slaven Bilic or even the players would have been hoping for.
Off the back of last weekend’s calamitous 4-0 defeat to Manchester United (although admittedly it looks slightly less so with Jose Mourinho’s side having dished out the same treatment to Swansea on Saturday afternoon), The Hammers were hoping to earn, at the very least, their first point(s) of the new season.
And while they came close, it was not to be at St Mary’s.
One nil down only 11 minutes into the game courtesy of a smart finish from Manolo Gabbiandini, the Hammers, or Marko Arnautovic, all but sealed the visitors fate just past the half-hour mark as the Austrian was sent off for a vicious elbow on Jack Stephens.
Five minutes later it was 2-0 thanks to a Dusan Tadic penalty.
Bilic’s side had it all to do, two down with a man missing, however very almost rescued an unlikely point thanks to a brace from summer signing Javier Hernandez who opened and doubled his account in Claret and Blue.
A second penalty, and another one of the summer’s signings Pablo Zabaleta at fault, in the 93rd however left it up to Charlie Austin to secure all three points for the hosts, which he did, leaving the Hammers to travel home to East London empty handed.
Upwards and onwards, here are three lessons we learned from Saturday’s narrow defeat …
