It's the West Ham way- Hammers beat the Terriers of Huddersfield Town.

It's the West Ham way- Hammers beat the Terriers of Huddersfield Town.

The rain fell almost remorselessly from a dark East London sky. The London Olympic Stadium, once the stage of Olympic Games and World Athletics champions, had now been returned to its original home of West Ham United football club. It now seems an age since the claret and blue shirts of West Ham had struggled their way towards mid table respectability last season.

Now the slate has been swept clean and the Hammers are back in their original home where some of their more sceptical supporters were still grumbling about the demise of the more intimate Upton Park. The traditionalists were still running their hands through their hair and then bowing their heads in utter disgust. Not another season of toil and trouble, heartache and harrowingly disturbing events, they must have been thinking. Surely things could not slide downhill so rapidly as they did last season.

For most of last season West Ham treated most of their matches at the London Stadium rather like bemused tourists wandering around the Tower of London and then asking for directions to Madame Tussauds. It was very much the learning curve that most of the team were privately fearing. Rather like their London neighbours Arsenal, the move to a bigger, plusher and grander stadium meant much more than a straightforward re-adjustment. Those furniture removal vans must have been so relieved to see the back of both West Ham and Arsenal.

The fact is though that the East London side have still begun this new Premier League season like nervous young lambs gambolling around a strange field in the middle of nowhere. You were reminded of  11 men going around in ever increasing circles in a hotel's revolving doors. Their first three matches away from the London Stadium have been both forgettable and distressing. The 4-0 defeat at Manchester United's Old Trafford was swiftly followed a week later by the narrow 3-2 loss at Southampton before Newcastle rubbed considerable salt in the wound with a 3-0 humiliation at St James's Park.

Needless to say poor Slaven Bilic looked as if he could have done with much more than his birthday cake to cushion the blow. Perhaps a good claret to drown the sorrows. The truth is that the West Ham manager stood in the pouring rain rather like former England manager Steve Mclaren in the World Cup qualifier that led to his downfall. And that was ironically against Bilic's Croatia. How Bilic needed a good tonic to help lift his morose mood.

Here in his first game back at the club's London Stadium he still looks uncomfortable and ill at ease with the rest of the world. Last night his jacket got a complete soaking, his face scowling and disapproving but then he did have a valid excuse for his sullen demeanour. Not for the first time, West Ham are at the wrong end of the Premier League and the top half still looks like an insurmountable mountain best handled with a strong set of crampons. If only somebody could change the script.

Once again West Ham looked like a side that hadn't quite found their bearings and frequently looked disjointed, out of sorts, lifeless, flat and moreover not sure what they were supposed to be doing. For much of the first half their passes were well intentioned but they then resorted to the longer option when the sweet simplicities of the shorter variety looked so much more inviting. The first twenty minutes saw West Ham nervously shifting the ball into no man's land. From time to time the signs were vaguely encouraging but then the ball seemed to drift into tight, claustrophobic areas of the pitch where the ball simply lost its sense of direction.

For a team at the bottom of the Premier League before last night's game against promoted newcomers Huddersfield, West Ham still looked shell shocked and groggy, refusing to accept any responsibility for any of their alleged faults and shortcomings on the pitch. There was something of the novice and newcomer about West Ham, a side yet to be introduced to each other and then finding that they'd lost their way when the guide book had given them conflicting information.

Last season West Ham were beaten eight times at their brand new London Stadium and there were lengthy periods of this game against Huddersfield Town when it certainly looked like as if a similar fate would await them this season although hopefully not. Huddersfield briefly ventured into West Ham's half rather first time swimmers testing the water. West Ham did a considerable amount of toe dipping but still treated the ball like a hot potato. In fact so frustrated had the home supporters become that it only seemed a matter of time before the claret and blue hordes were storming the barricades, throwing their trade union banners at the gates and then going on strike at the Thames Ironworks. Or maybe that it's a historical exaggeration.

Then at the beginning of the second half the West Ham midfield pairing of Chekhou Kouyate, Pedro Obiang gelled together and the superb Michal Antonio began to create havoc on the wing. West Ham began to grab the initiative moving the ball quickly and effectively across the middle of the pitch.  Antonio gladly ran at his defender with startling pace, a fair amount of skill, whole hearted industry and that incisive cutting edge that may have been missing from West Ham's first three matches

But it all looked rather slow and painstaking, a labour of love rather than a beautifully composed piece of art work. Shortly Aaron Cresswell suddenly broke out of his shell at full back and thundered forward on the overlap, picking up the ball neatly in the most dangerous areas and then sizing up low, driven crosses into the Huddersfield penalty area. With Cresswell, Pablo Zabaleta who must have wondered what he was doing at West Ham after winning the Premier League with Manchester City, lent a genuine air of experience and worldly wisdom to the proceedings at the London Stadium.

With captain Winston Reid back in the first team after injury and Jose Fonte still in dominant form, West Ham began to grow into the game and find their feet. Huddersfield's contribution to the game had been pathetically negligible and West Ham looked much more confident and assertive than they'd ever been at any time since the beginning of the season.

Half way into the second half the Hammers finally achieved some semblance of fluency and attacking intelligence. Suddenly a short, quickfire passage of two passes found Pedro Obiang in complete isolation on the edge of the Huddersfield penalty area. Obiang, more in hope than expectation, drilled  a firm shot towards the visitors keeper. The ball, with a mind of its own, took the most fortunate deflection off a Huddersfield defender, swinging wildly over the head of the keeper and looping into the net for the Hammers opening goal of the season at the London Stadium. Luck perhaps but a welcome break from the norm for West Ham.

Minutes later West Ham confirmed their growing stature and there was an air of seniority about West Ham's football from there onwards. They now began to find emptier spaces in the Huddersfield half where none had existed in the first half. Players were now free to express themselves where before they'd previously found dark alleyways.

A corner from the right swerved its way into a congested penalty area and in a muddled melee Andre Ayew poked the ball into the Huddersfield net with the weary resignation of a man who'd seen it all before. It was the second and winning goal and the seasoned West Ham fans drifted into the East London night rather like  battered heavyweight boxers just grateful for a couple of cuts to the head and eye. For those of a claret and blue allegiance this was like spotting water in a vast desert. Oh to be a West Ham United supporter. There's a lot to be said for loyalty to the cause.