MARK Hughes bore the look of a man who had just been caught up in a hurricane as he emerged from a disconsolate dressing room at Upton Park on Saturday evening.

The bitterly disappointed Blackburn boss had hoped to see his players 'hit the ground running' on the opening day of the new season, but instead they fell flat on their faces after being blown away by a team that had started the day as one of the favourites to be relegated back to the Championship.

The first day of a new season is notorious for throwing up bizarre results and none were more bizarre than this as the Premiership got back in full swing.

Not even the staunchest West Ham fan could have predicted the ease with which they tore Rovers to shreds during a remarkable second half fightback.

Blackburn, normally so solid at the back under Hughes, were anything but that as they allowed the Hammers, inspired by the evergreen Teddy Sheringham, to wreak maximum devastation.

No one anticipated it, least of all Hughes, who had arrived in East London looking to get off to a flyer after some encouraging pre-season performances.

"I don't think any of us saw that coming," said the shell-shocked Blackburn boss.

"We've had a good pre-season and we've put in progressively better performances in every game we've played so we were expecting a continuation of that today and the surprise is we didn't get it.

"At the moment, we are scratching our heads somewhat.

"In the first half I thought we were reasonably comfortable, but the second half wasn't acceptable."

Hughes' sense of frustration was all the more acute given that Rovers had thrown away a winning position.

They made a dream start thanks to a rare goal from Andy Todd but then, bizarrely, the defensive resolve that characterised the second half of last season deserted them as West Ham masterminded a breathtaking recovery.

There's no doubt the absence of the injured Ryan Nelsen was a telling factor in Rovers' demise.

The Kiwi's partnership with Todd at the back formed the bedrock of last season's survival bid and his replacement here, Aaron Mokoena, had a torrid time against Sheringham and Marlon Harewood - West Ham's tortoise and hare combination up front.

Few players in the Premiership are more effective in that withdrawn striker's role than Sheringham who, at 39, still has the craft and guile to exploit the space around him, and he repeatedly threaded clever passes through to his speedy accomplice Harewood, whose lightning pace caused Rovers no end of problems.

In fairness to Mokoena and his defensive colleagues, they were hardly well protected by the men in front of them as Rovers lost the battle for supremacy in midfield.

Last season, Hughes' much maligned 4-5-1 formation was one of the main reasons why Rovers looked so solid, particularly away from home, even though that meant sacrificing some of the side's attacking potential.

This term, the Blackburn boss has vowed to be more positive in an attempt to boost the 'goals for' column but he may be forced into a slight rethink if the switch to a more expansive 4-4-2 proves detrimental in terms of the team's defensive capabilities.

There was certainly a 15 minute spell in the second half when Rovers looked all at sea in midfield as Robbie Savage and Steven Reid struggled to stem wave after wave of claret and blue attacks.

Hughes finally took drastic action and stuck an extra man in midfield but, by then, the momentum was firmly with West Ham and they looked capable of scoring every time they crossed the halfway line.

Rovers, in contrast, offered little going forward, particularly in the second half when the service into the new strike pair of Craig Bellamy and Shefki Kuqi was poor.

It's okay having a lethal weapon like Bellamy to spearhead the attack but he's still reliant on his teammates to provide the ammunition and they didn't do a decent job of that here.

The Welshman only had one shot at goal, which he put wide in the 89th minute, but that was one more than Kuqi, who never imposed himself on the Hammers' defence after terrorising Espanyol the week before.

In their defence, however, this was only the second time Bellamy and Kuqi had played together up front and they clearly need time to develop an understanding - time they will now get as Paul Dickov is facing a three-match ban as a result of his needless sending off.

Rovers had an early scare when Harewood fired wide after just four minutes.

Moments later, a free kick from Savage at the opposite end looked to be sailing into the top corner until Paul Konchesky got back to head it off the line.

West Ham's reprieve proved only temporary, however, as Rovers grabbed the lead in the 18th minute.

Morten Gamst Pedersen whipped over a low corner from the left that flummoxed the home defence and the ball eventually dropped kindly for Todd, who showed great composure to find the bottom corner from 12 yards out.

The rest of the half belonged to the Hammers but, for all their pressure, they struggled to find a way past Brad Friedel, who twice denied Sheringham.

Rovers finally cracked at the beginning of the second half and, inevitably, it was that man Sheringham who made the breakthrough, pouncing on a lucky deflection off Todd to side-foot home from penalty spot range.

Suddenly, confidence coursed through West Ham veins and Sheringham should have helped himself to a second soon after but he somehow missed the target from inside the six-yard box.

Hughes decided enough was enough and attempted to stem the tide by replacing the ineffective Kuqi with Vratty Gresko, but that failed to have the desired effect.

Upton Park erupted again in the 62nd minute when Nigel Reo-Coker beat Friedel all ends up with a stunning 20-yard drive that exploded into the top corner.

And Matthew Etherington grabbed the third in the 80th minute, tapping in from three yards out after a terrible mistake by Brett Emerton.

Just when Hughes thought things couldn't get any worse, they promptly did moments later when Dickov saw red for a reckless two-footed lunge on Konchesky.

So it's back to the drawing board for the Rovers boss, whose one consolation is he's got another 10 months and 37 games to put things right.