London: Slaven Bilic surprised all by finishing seventh in his first season in charge of West Ham United last year, but the Hammers are now 18th with just one win in six at the start of his second season.

What’s changed? Well the most obvious difference is their stadium. Last year’s above par performances were buoyed by it being their final season at the Boleyn Ground, and they said goodbye to their 112-year-old stadium in style by qualifying for the Europa League play-offs.

The transition to their new stadium the 2012 London Olympic ground in Stratford, which is just over three miles east of their old home in Upton Park, has been anything but smooth however.

Upgrading from a 35,000 stadium to a 60,000-capacity ground obviously allows the club to raise more money from gate receipts in order to help them grow and become more competitive, but so far the move has been anything but beneficial.

Upton Park always used to be a difficult stadium to visit for away teams thanks to the proximity of the crowd to the pitch and the intimidating atmosphere that they created.

But all that advantage has been lost in their move to the Olympic Stadium as fans are now miles from the pitch due to the athletics track. And the atmosphere has also been decimated not only because it’s a bigger, less enclosed stadium, but also because fans — who used to stand at the Boleyn — are now being forced to sit down by stewards.

Any togetherness between West Ham fans has also been ruined as the sit down rule has caused a divide in opinion leading to full on violence between supporters.

All this has impacted on the performances. West Ham have lost two of their three home games in the league and one of their two Europa League qualifiers, dumping them out of Europe and leaving them in the Premier League’s relegation zone.

They’ve also lost all three of their away games in the league so far — but to be fair little could have been expected from away trips to Chelsea and Manchester City, and a third away loss to West Bromwich Albion could just be blamed on a lack of confidence from recent results as a whole.

It’s not too dissimilar to what happened with Southampton when they left the Dell and moved to the St. Mary’s Stadium in 2001. The Saints didn’t win at home until the end of November and were starring relegation in the face until Gordon Strachan took over from Stuart Gray and led them back to an 11th place finish.

This isn’t a crisis but a mere bump in the road for West Ham. The same coach and players that led them to seventh last season can’t all suddenly be useless, the conditions have just changed.