Stop me if you think you've heard this one before

Enoch Powell once said that all political lives end in failure. If he had not been so obsessed with stirring up racial hatred, he may have taken the analysis further and noted that all West Ham managerial lives begin with failure.

West Ham managers come and go. Some are less catastrophic than others. What they all share though is a complete absence of beginner’s luck. This is why we should not despair at Saturday’s one-nil reverse against Cardiff, but instead accept that Big Sam is destined to be a late developer.

Here is a recent history of false starts.

Avram Grant (2010-2011)

Admittedly Grant was consistently hopeless but no other spell during his annus horribilis was ever quite as bad as the start. It is easy to forget that Avram’s tenure did have the odd bright spot: four wins from six at the turn of the year, a 4-0 win over Man Utd, a cup semi-final. However, Grant won just one of his first 14 league games. A final points haul of 33 was embarrassing enough, but the points ratio up to late November extrapolated across the season works out at just 24. There would have been no Portsmouth-style points deduction to explain this one away.

Gianfranco Zola (2008-2010)

Zola was not exactly walking into a club in crisis. Far from it. The previous season West Ham had edged out Tottenham to claim a top-half finish. In September 2008, the Italian inherited a team that had got off to a flyer, having won three of its first four games, including two 4-1 victories. By contrast, only two of Zola’s first 11 games ended in victory. He eventually got it right (that season at least) with the team even bettering the previous year’s finish. But had the form of those first 11 games continued throughout the season, West Ham would have finished bottom, seven points adrift of safety.

Alan Curbishley (2006-2008)

In his first game in charge, Curbs lulled us all into a false sense of security with a stunning win against that season’s champions Manchester United. Sadly, the next 11 games were all winless, and included a 4-0 humiliation at Charlton and a 6-0 massacre at Reading. Once Curbs got it right, he really got it right. Seven wins from the last nine games kept us afloat by three points. The turning point? A 2-1 win at Blackburn inspired by a Bobby Zamora goal that never crossed the line – because Carlos Tevez kept it out.

Alan Pardew (2003-2006)

Having eventually finished his gardening leave at Reading, draw-specialist Pards needed eight games before notching his first West Ham win. On the day he got it right two Marlon Harewood goals saw us smash Wigan 4-0. It went some way to exorcising the demons of the West Brom game three weeks earlier when Wayne Quinn and co managed to turn a 3-0 lead into a 4-3 defeat. Although the team managed to gain some momentum, they were never able to make up the ground lost from this slow start, finishing 12 points adrift of automatic promotion. Big Sam may not want to be too patient in waiting for this year’s squad to adapt to his style.

Glen Roeder (2001-2003)

Like Grant, Rodent was an awful manager. So it is easy to forget that in his first season we finished 7th. Only once since 1986 have the Hammers finished so high. Seven games into the season such an outcome seemed unthinkable, as the team managed just one victory and suffered heavy defeats at Everton (0-5) and Blackburn (1-7). In this particular instance a continuation of the bad early form and a swift sacking would have saved us all a lot of bother.

Harry Redknapp (1994-2001)

Described by his predecessor as a “spiv”, Harry did little in those early days to justify the board’s decision to hand him the knife with which to stab his best mate. The season before, Bonzo had guided us to a respectable 13th finish, ten points clear of relegation and ahead of both Chelsea and Tottenham. Harry won just one of his first eight games and oversaw an embarrassing defeat to Walsall. Back in the days of 22 Premier League teams, West Ham finished a relatively comfortable 14th and the spiv went on to manage us for another six seasons.

Historic trends aside, there were many positives to take from Sunday’s game. The defence looked strong. Winston Reid and James Tomkins seemed to be a decent defensive pairing, with the latter winning everything in the air (granted, Rob Earnshaw and Kenny Miller are not the tallest). Kevin Nolan may not have set the world on fire but his class was obvious. Ditto Matt Taylor. Joey O’Brien rightly took a lot of plaudits. Big Sam’s decision to send Jordan Spence out on loan now appears to make some sense.

Less encouraging were the performances of Scott Parker and the two Freddies. Parker looked like someone working their notice period while carrying out a handover with their replacement. It would be a sad end to an impressive four years at Upton Park, if he were to play out his final games going through the motions. Piquionne was unusually poor in the air. Until Avram mysteriously decided to turn him into a winger, his aerial threat was a major asset last year. As for Sears, I used to question whether he was a Premier League footballer. I am now starting to question whether he is a Championship footballer.

Most rational fans will have come away from Upton Park disappointed by the outcome, but conscious that the result was an unfair one. Anti-climatic it certainly was, but isn't the theory of the new manager bounce factor just a myth anyway? Well, not if you’re Malky Mackay.