Well, I was a fool thinking this was three points in the bag for Liverpool before the match. It was a sour awakening and dire shakeup-and-wake-up call during and after the match.
The first half showed the trend of the match straight away: Thomas Hitzlsperger making his debut for the Hammers was a pain in the Reds' neck from the start - too fast a furious for the zoned out guests.
The German midfielder made some fine runs and breakthroughs and turned to provider on 22 when playing a neat one-two with Scott Parker, the England midfielder opened the scoring with a fine flick past Pepe Reina, his fifth league goal of the season.
Liverpool's half went from bad to worse when Martin Kelly had to come off injured and only seconds later they fell 2-0 behind after poor marking left Pepe no chance to stop Demba Ba from heading the ball into the top right hand corner off a Gary O'Neil cross.
If that wasn't bad enouhg for the Reds, worse was to come: Raul Meireles had to come off injured too with a hamstring on 49 when West Ham were just getting in the modd to score again - Ba putting a sweet shot just wide and forward Frederic Piquionne missing an open header after a corner confusion.
Man of the match Parker and Piquionne broke forward again on 73, 2 v 2, Reina had to come out to the rescue. Just minutes later, the Spaniard spilled Piquionne's shot but was able to recover, just.
It could have been 3, 4 or 5-0 before Luis Suarez made a superb turn and pass on the edge of the box to get the ball across goal for Glen Johnson to have an easy job of tapping it in after total mayhem broke out in the box and getting the Red fans' hopes up of a comeback.
It didn't last long though, just over five minutes, before super-sub Carlton Cole shrugged off Martin Skrtel on the run through to make it 3-1 and three points for the Hammers, a job well and truely done, finished off and completed, getting them off the bottom of the table.
Liverpool meanwhile will have to get their act together, with United as their next opponents, things will get everything else but easier! If they want to get anywhere near or even just closer to the top four that is...
West Ham: Green, Jacobsen, Tomkins, Upson, Bridge, O'Neil, Parker, Noble, Hitzlsperger, Ba (Cole 88), Piquionne (Spector 82).
Subs not used: Boffin, Reid, Boa Morte, da Costa, Hines.
Liverpool: Reina, Kelly (Cole 43), Carragher, Skrtel (booked 7), Wilson, Lucas, Meireles (Ngog 49), Johnson, Gerrard, Kuyt, Suarez.
Subs not used: Gulacsi, Kyrgiakos, Maxi, Spearing, Poulsen.
1st half stats:
West Ham-Liverpool
Attempts: 5-5
On target: 4-3
Offsides: 0-0
Corners: 2-1
Free kicks: 3-6
2nd half stats:
West Ham-Liverpool
Attempts: 11-6
On target: 3-4
Offsides: 0-0
Corners: 4-5
Free kicks: 4-5
Possession:
60%-40% (59.-69.min)
Sky Sports Stats:
West Ham-Liverpool
Possession: 41.6%-58.4%
Passing Success: 75.1%-78.7%
Tackles/Success: 18/72.2%-21/71.4%
Territorial Advantage: 49.7%-50.3%
Referee: Mark Halsey (Lancashire)
Man of the match: Scott Parker
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