West Ham United have made big steps this summer to bring Joe Hart, Marko Arnautovic, Pablo Zabaleta and Javier Hernandez to the club but it didn’t save them from an opening day hammering at the hands of Manchester United.

The Red Devils were always favourites to overcome the East London side but a hefty 4-0 defeat will have hit Slaven Bilic’s side hard, raising the pressure ahead of the Hammers’ trip to face Southampton this weekend.

West Ham will be looking to bounce-back against the Saints, carrying that form into their clash with Newcastle United next weekend and the first home game of the season against Huddersfield Town after the international break, but a former player has heavily questioned the club’s set-up.

Former midfielder Stewart Robson believes the club isn’t being run properly and that there is something fundamentally wrong with their DNA, in bold claims published by The Daily Express.

“I played at West Ham and I went from a professional environment at Arsenal to West Ham who had just come third in the league (1985-86 season) and the players did what they wanted to, the players were running the club,”

“And it got no better because two years later they were relegated and I think that’s been the same for West Ham year after year. It’s a very, very good club but it’s not being run properly and it’s never had that real professionalism that’s made it a top, top club.”

“There’s something in the DNA that’s not quite right at West Ham. I can always see them going to lose 4-0, 5-0 and they will have bad games where they will be absolutely hopeless because they’ve got something wrong with their DNA in terms of their professionalism and their mentality. And having a manager with just a year left on his deal makes everything worse.”

Slaven Bilic was under a lot of pressure heading into the summer break but the board kept faith in the Croatian, although his position is still not stable due to the short length of his current deal.