• Match ends to beat of folding seats
• Johan Elmander scores twice for Bolton

The closing minutes of Saturday’s game were accompanied by a succession of clunkety-clunks as West Ham United fans abandoned their tip-up seats and headed for the exits. A dispiriting sound at the best of times but alarming when it occurs at the opening home fixture of a new campaign.

Already, for West Ham, the season is looking grim after two defeats and may soon get grimmer: three of their next four Premier League matches are against Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, with a visit to Stoke City, which is hardly a respite, in between. Unless their defending improves West Ham could find themselves without a point after six games and Avram Grant may start to think he is hearing the Pompey chimes.

Grant succeeded Paul Hart at Fratton Park last November after it had taken Portsmouth eight matches to break their duck and was on a loser from the start. Now, after Bolton had beaten West Ham for the seventh time in successive league and cup meetings, he seemed to be reading from an old script as he sought solace in a performance that, while it showed more initiative in attack compared to the 3-0 defeat at Villa Park, was again undermined by catastrophic defending.

Fans are apt to wonder if reporters have been at the same game and sometimes as much goes for reporters and managers: “We played like a team at the top,” Grant declared. “I’m very happy with the performance. I am very disappointed with the result.” This was a man in denial.

The reality was that while West Ham did dominate the latter part of the first half, with the Mexican Pablo Barrera showing a refreshing willingness to take on opponents with the ball on the right and Frédéric Piquionne reproducing the industrious ingenuity he had shown under Grant at Portsmouth, the defence again failed to function as a unit.

Danny Gabbidon had replaced the struggling James Tomkins but the centre-back partnership with Matthew Upson remained tenuous and two of Bolton’s goals followed long kicks from Jussi Jaaskelainen which should have been dealt with.

Jaaskelainen kept Bolton in the contest when, having easily saved a poorly directed penalty from Carlton Cole in the 32nd minute, he kept out better shots towards half-time. “We had to get the players to regroup,” Owen Coyle, the Bolton manager, admitted afterwards. “We had one or two things to say at half-time.”

Presumably ears were still ringing when Bolton went ahead three minutes into the second half, Johan Elmander outjumping Gabbidon to meet Jaaskelainen’s long ball and nod it down for Kevin Davies to come up on Upson’s blind side with a legitimate challenge which had the centre-back diving to head into his own net as he caught the striker’s boot in his face. Upson gave way to Winston Reid soon afterwards, which did not help West Ham’s confidence at the back.

Elmander scored Bolton’s other two, suggesting he may not after all be Sweden’s answer to Emile Heskey, a non-striking striker, even though he did miss a sitter in the second minute. Kevin Davies’s pass out to Lee Chung-yong set up the goal with Herita Ilunga, West Ham’s left-back, nowhere in sight as the Korean provided the cross for Elmander’s header in the 68th minute and Davies won the ball in the air to begin the move that led to Elmander driving a low shot past Robert Green in the 84th.

Mark Noble’s penalty, which temporarily brought West Ham back into the game at 2-1 with 11 minutes remaining, brought a brief roar of encouragement before the seats started to empty.

Coyle’s Bolton are as direct in their methods as they were under Sam Allardyce and Gary Megson, and Davies is so much a centre-forward of the old school that he should have a centre parting. But the team looks well balanced, with Fabrice Muamba and Stuart Holden offering subtler options in midfield and Martin Petrov, late of Manchester City, providing pace and penetration on the left.

Man of the match: Johan Elmander (Bolton Wanderers).

Premier LeagueWest Ham UnitedBolton WanderersDavid Laceyguardian.co.uk

The B-word is seemingly off limits at Arsenal. Arsène Wenger was exasperated when his Friday conference became consumed by it and his worst fears were almost confirmed here at Emirates Stadium when his players looked distracted for sizeable spells and might have been made to pay by a more ruthless team than West Ham.

Cue Cesc Fábregas. If anyone was going to bring it up, it was surely he. And after scoring the late penalty which sealed these three points, the Arsenal captain jumped in and did it. “We are only thinking about Birmingham. Our first priority is Birmingham and that is the sign of champions, taking things game by game,” he said.

Fábregas did get around to Barcelona, however, the club Arsenal will face in a mouthwatering Champions League quarter-final, and the one currently casting long shadows over the red half of north London. The Barcelona youth set-up was where it all started for him and two of his friends from those days, Lionel Messi and Gerard Piqué, are now fixtures in Pep Guardiola’s team. Then there is Thierry Henry, the former Arsenal captain and another good friend.

“It is very exciting,” said Fábregas. “We are going to play against the best team in Europe, probably in the world. But we always go with the same mentality and that is to win. If you want to win the competition, you have to beat everyone who is coming. If we had been drawn against Bordeaux or Lyon, we would have taken it the same way.”

It is the Premier League trip to St Andrew’s on Saturday, however, which comes first and that is quickening the pulse of Fábregas and his team-mates. It was there two seasons ago that Arsenal’s title challenge started to unravel amid the catastrophic injury to Eduardo, but this time Wenger and his players sense a happier ending.

Only seven league games are left. If Arsenal can win them all, as they have their previous six and as they believe they can, then they would only need the merest of slips from Manchester United and Chelsea.

Wenger will be without both of his first-choice central defenders against Birmingham. Thomas Vermaelen is suspended, having been harshly dismissed for what was adjudged a professional foul on the West Ham striker Guillermo Franco – Manuel Almunia made a crucial save from the resultant 45th-minute Alessandro Diamanti penalty – and William Gallas remains a serious injury concern.

But given the seamless fashion in which Alex Song dropped back from midfield to deputise for Vermaelen, Wenger will not worry. He described Song as perhaps the most improved player in the Premier League. “When we lost at home to Chelsea and Man United, and I must say it was in a convincing way, everybody got a little bit carried away and you have to go a bit overboard,” he said.

“Nobody takes you seriously after that. But I believe we can go and win the next games. To have a chance, we absolutely have to win all of our games.”

Wenger paraphrased Rhett Butler when he was asked whether it would bother him, in the event of Arsenal winning the title, that they had failed to take a point from United or Chelsea. “Frankly, no,” he said, as he pointed out that United had won last season’s championship with a haul of only five points from their encounters with the other three Champions League qualifiers. “Yes, there is a point of view there but I tell you, I would still take the title.”

West Ham were left to lament not only Diamanti’s penalty miss but the way that, against 10 men, they went close to equalising Denílson’s low drive only once, when the substitute Carlton Cole hit a post on 78 minutes.

Arsenal knew that they had been in a game and West Ham moved the ball pleasingly at times but, in the crucial six-pointer at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers tomorrow – a point and a place above them in 16th position – Gianfranco Zola’s side need to be much sharper in front of goal.

“In these moments, you have to keep your composure,” said Zola, a comment directed at everyone at the club, from the new owners down. “You have to do the right things and not get emotional because you don’t improve the situation.”

Premier LeagueArsenalWest Ham UnitedDavid Hytnerguardian.co.uk