They procured the only chance of note in the first half against Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth, with visiting goalkeeper Artur Boruc obliged to parry at his near post from Enner Valencia.
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But in truth, Bournemouth dealt comfortably with West Ham’s early pressure, though without notably creating an opportunity of their own.
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West Ham were offered hope when Cherries midfielder, Harry Arter, was shown a second yellow card for a clumsy foul on Cheikhou Kouyate, and with time running out they made their numerical advantage pay.
For West Ham manager Slaven Bilic anything less than victory in the club’s first top flight game at their new ground would have raised questions “like a snowball” about the wisdom of the move from Upton Park to their new 60,000 capacity stadium.
-Apparently the new Press Conference room can be located across from the vomitory.
“There is no club in Europe that has been linked with more players than West Ham and a lot of them are not true”.
If West Ham are to fulfil Bilic’s prediction of an atmospheric first season in the London Stadium, they will need better luck with injuries than they are now experiencing. When he’s on form there’s not many better shot stoppers in the world. Maybe he can try another position next week.
He is set to talk about it with the club on Monday, but revealed Payet and Manuel Lanzini could be back for the return leg against Astra Giurgiu in the Europa League.
West Ham boss Slaven Bilic was pleased to get off the mark at home.
‘The chairman is going to be very generous and he will get one if we find the proper one, it’s very hard now.
“A win is a win. We’re delighted to end the first game at this lovely stadium with a win”.
“As soon as the ball went to the back post it was just pickings for me”.
Having struggled to test West Ham’s back four before the interval, there were brief signs of greater endeavour from the visitors, with Joshua King forcing Adrián to make an outstanding save with a fierce effort from 25 yards.
“Everybody knows what he means for us, and, of course, we would have loved for him to play, but it was impossible”.
“You can’t take time to get used to it or there will be reds galore”.
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“I thrived on playing further forward and I was in awe of it and it’s just enjoyed every single moment of it”.
