Saturday’s trip to Upton Park for West Ham United’s visit from AFC Bournemouth was a journey into the unknown.

After West Ham’s excellent victory over Arsenal, which was cancelled out by a dismal defeat to Leicester City last weekend, I didn’t quite know what Hammers side would turn up.

As it turned out West Ham’s performance was woeful, especially defensively, and supporters will undoubtedly have nightmares all week after their 4-3 to the Cherries. If Slaven Bilic’s men perform like that every week, I fear for them.

From minute one the defence looked shaky and so it proved.

When West Ham’s defence got possession it seemed like they wanted to get rid of it as quickly as possible. This largely led to aimless long balls up field, which in turn saw the ball being gifted back to Bournemouth.

As much as Eddie Howe’s side were superb, three of the Cherries’ four goals came from awful defensive errors from either Aaron Cresswell or Carl Jenkinson.

In particular Jenkinson had a shocking game, giving the ball away on numerous occasions and his dismal afternoon was capped off when he mis-controlled after a West Ham corner had been cleared, allowing Max Gradel to nip in and drive towards goal. The Ivorian was cynically pulled back by the Arsenal loanee, resulting in a penalty for the Cherries and a red card for Jenkinson.

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It would be easy to forget West Ham qualified for the Europa League by virtue of the fair play league and although that is not based on the team’s disciplinary record alone, five red cards already this season tells its own story.

On the left-hand side Cresswell had a disastrous game as well and the former Ipswich Town man was at fault for both of Bournemouth’s goals in the first half.

He carelessly gifted the ball back to Simon Francis for the Cherries’ first and his attempted pass was easily intercepted by Callum Wilson on the edge of the area before the former Coventry striker did the rest, increasing the visitors’ advantage.

Equally poor was centre-back Winston Reid and it was mystifying that he wasn’t replaced by James Tomkins midway through the first half.

New signing Angelo Ogbonna was instead the man to be hauled off by Bilic, a move which mystified Hammers fans as the former Juventus defender was the pick of a bad bunch.

Had it not been for debutant Darren Randolph in goal it could have quite easily been four or five to Bournemouth at half-time and that is an accurate indicator of quite how woeful the Hammers were defensively.

Former Birmingham City keeper Randolph was a rare shining light for West Ham, pulling off a number of superb saves and he deservedly picked up the man-of-the-match award. Diafra Sakho and Tomkins also stood out Slaven Bilic’s men, but in truth, the majority around them had an off day.

Whilst the first half performance was poor from West Ham, they came out fired up in the second half and were on level terms within ten minutes.

The Hammers were in the ascendancy and Upton Park was rocking. Bournemouth looked apprehensive and one would have expected West Ham would go on to win the game from that point.

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However, instead of pressing their opposition and going for the three points as you would expect the home team to do when chasing a game, West Ham quivered and sat off Bournemouth, allowing the Cherries to play their own passing game once again.

This was quite startling, as after equalising, West Ham barely mustered another attack until Modibo Maiga made it 4-3 late on.

Instead they allowed Bournemouth too much time on the ball, just as they had done in the first half, and with frailties in defence, Howe’s men could easily pick their way through.

In truth, the scoreline was not a true reflection of the match itself; Bournemouth could have easily scored six or seven had Randolph not been in inspired form between the sticks.

Some new additions to the squad are badly needed. The Hammers are desperately short up front, with Sakho, Elliot Lee and Maiga their only fit strikers.

The defence could also do with a bit of work based on Saturday’s evidence. New full-backs to provide Jenkinson and Cresswell with competition for their spots would be handy and a capable rival for Reid is also much needed.

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Bilic will surely also be thinking of adding some creativity to his squad. The Hammers failed to utilise the space that was available down the flanks and seemed to miss a bit of creative energy in the side.

In short, investment is still needed in this West Ham side if they want to go on and have a successful season. If they don’t invest, I really do fear for them.