Fake Crowd Noise and Upton Park Explosions – Reviewing West Ham at the Olympic Stadium

What's going on with West Ham United and their stadium that we all have to pay for? A stadium that owners David Gold and David Sullivan boasted would make them one of the top clubs in the country. A stadium that would give them the clout to compete with the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham as London's biggest hitters?

Well, what's mainly happening in that stadium is that West Ham are losing a lot of football games by big margins. That's what's mainly happening there.

And now, as if the shitcake they are baking in Stratford wasn't already sweet enough, the club has been accused of pumping fake crowd noise into the stadium. It's almost as if Gold and Sullivan were thinking about the money they could make from said stadium before considering how it might affect the fans, the team, and the club as a whole.

Following their 3-0 defeat to Southampton on Sunday – their fifth from six league games this season – boss Slaven Bilic sought to make sense of the situation: "These are the same players and same manager and crowd that were doing it last year. But it is true that at the moment we have to be clear, everything that was really good last year is bad."

That's true. It's almost as if moving to this giant new stadium with a running track has completely disconnected the fans from their team, so much so that the club actually need to pump out fake crowd noise to create something approaching atmosphere. Bilic is right: this genuinely is the same team, manager, and crowd, yet somehow everything that was good last year has turned to shit.

Club captain Mark Noble was even more scathing after their defeat to the Saints: "11 goals in three games is laughable. If I'm honest, it could have been six in the end. On the bright side, I don't think it can get any worse. At the moment we're just not good enough."

You have to agree with Mark when he says it's laughable. And, in case you'd forgotten, it's also laughable that they're pumping out fake crowd noise.

But I'd disagree with Mark and say that things really could get worse. After all, West Ham could keep losing game after game, conceding goal after goal, slowly watching as the crowd numbers thin out in their massive taxpayer-funded stadium, and listening as the fake crowd noise grows ever louder. Next would come sacking after sacking in a wild bid to halt the decline, watching as they are relegated, leaving 10,000 fans in a stadium built for 60,000, while their best players, such as Dimitri Payet and… while their best player is sold. That's how it could get worse Mark; that's how it could get worse.

Meanwhile, their former home, Upton Park, is lying in ruins, a heap of smouldering ashes. The club's owners allowed the producers of a Hollywood action film – described as 'Die Hard in a soccer stadium' – to blow it up for scenes that will, in all likelihood, be terrible. Sections have been reduced to rubble, and no football will be played there again. Still, the atmosphere at the old ground probably trumps what's going on at the Olympic Stadium.