Slaven Bilic named as West Ham Manager (09.06.15)

grey_til_I_dye

It's only part of the interview.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/dec/28/david-sullivan-west-ham-rafael-benitez-manuel-lanzini

He also reveals we will sign Lanzini earlier than April, thinks Payet is the best player he has ever signed, and is happy we got Bilic.

It's the Guardian that has chosen to lead with the Benitez part of the story.

They could easily have had 'Payet best player I've ever signed' as the heading, or
'West Ham to make Lanzini deal permanent'.

Vorselaarhammer

Didn't we already know about the Benitez thing, I thought Sullivan or Gold already said this before the season even started. Or am I imagining it?

grey_til_I_dye

Vorse

I did wonder if it wasn't a rehash of a variety of different quotes.

I couldn't see what the source was.

Vorselaarhammer

Slow news day....

EXETERHAMMER

Seems a rehash. However, Sullivan should not be mentioning other names. He should know how the media work. It doesn't read well if you are Bilic as he is reminded that he was 3rd choice at best.

Dodger58

In the interview DS says he interviewed Slaven 4/5 years ago but he wouldn't come unless he was given 30M to spend. Also says he was the best of the rest (after Benitez) and he's very happy with him. See: http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/10111958/west-ham-were-close-to-appointing-benitez no subscription necessary.

OutcastLondoner

Grey, it's not clear what the question is but he does start off talking about Bilic and then leads into the topic of Benitez in that video, which the journalist follows up on. Just seems unnecessary to bring up, he didn't need to create a new headline that could cause tension with the manager.

Hammerwombat

I'm happy with Slaven Bilic. I don't want a Scouse reject, or a bit of Euro trash. I want somebody who can work with what he has and get the best out of it. And change and mould the squad as money and time allows. This season I would be happy with mid table, three years from now , maybe that won't be good enough. But Slaven is going about it in his own style, and we appear to have a happy single minded club. I like that.

SuzanneClaret

grey_til_I_dye

This man's honesty is fantastic:

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/35190370

OutcastLondoner

Brilliant ;ok Unlike most of the managers in the league.

Texashammer

Love it when he says "we didn't lose"

He was definitely feeling the pressure.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

These kind of interviews do Sully no favours at all imo. He's been doing this kind of stuff for years. No need to mention any other managers at all.

With regards Slav, he says all the right stuff, brutally honest.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

He didn't want to humiliate any of the players by taking someone off before HT.

Wonder if the Ogbonna sub earlier in the season played a part in his thinking.

TwistandShout

Slavs passion ;clap ;bowdown

TwistandShout

grey_til_I_dye said:

This man's honesty is fantastic:

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/35190370

Grey ;ok also thought Koeman showed some class yesterday. Gave us a lot of credit for the 2nd half

grey_til_I_dye

“It was the players who changed the game around,” said Bilic afterwards. “We can talk about what I said at half-time but then you could ask me what I said before the game for us to play that badly."

TwistandShout

Love him

Lukerz

That quote is quality. ;bowdown

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

First of all, give it a rest about the managers Dave.....

Secondly, clearly neither yourself or Mr Gold wanted to spend 30m in transfers back then (which Slaven asked for), you've recently admitted that relegation changed your outlook on things, I'm assuming that doing things on the "cheap" is pretty much out of the question now, although I appreciate the finances were difficult.

Fact is, you ended up paying out 30m to help balance the books after relegation, so you coughed it up another way, but probably put the club at greater risk, there again who knows if Slaven would've made a go of it (I think he would).

grey_til_I_dye

Transfer chat moved to transfer thread.

Lukerz

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/west-ham/12077303/Slaven-Bilic-I-know-I-could-ruin-my-legacy-at-West-Ham-but-its-worth-the-risk-for-the-club-I-love.html

TwistandShout

;bowdown

buffybegood

Great interview ;thumbsup

EXETERHAMMER

Clever man.

Dodger58

An excellent article, thanks for posting it. One of my favourite bits

His demanding work ethic can be a shock to players – especially, interestingly, those in the Premier League with Bilic saying it is a “myth” that it is physically “more intense” than other leagues.
“The only thing that is different in the English way is that they train less than in Europe,” Bilic says.

Lukerz

I think it's very difficult to go wrong with a manager as smart as he is.

Lukerz

Slav getting loads of praise on Soccer Saturday.

jay_in_cpt

I think that after the last 7 games unbeaten Slav can take a lot of credit.
While we drew 5 , not to lose any was a real feat IMO ..
To lose virtually your 5 best players or at least guaranteed squad place players and not get beat shows a lot of grit and determination and we coped the best we could in that position.
Back to back wins are just rewards for recent efforts.
It's been a great season so far and I'm loving our new manager...
It's like a breath of fresh air and we have moved on from the good position he took over the club in.
May it continue for a long time.. ;ok

Lukerz

So, for comparison, we also had 32 points from 20 games last season, also with a GD of +7. We were 7th overall.

From the corresponding fixtures, we had 26 points, compared to 32 this season.

So I think it's fair to say Slav has at least repeated the feat of the first half of last season. You could even point to the corresponding games comparison and say he has done even better.

The question is, can he do what we couldn't do last season and continue this run of consistency and have us finish in that top 7/8? Maybe even 6th? I certainly back us to do better than 3 wins in 18.