Slaven Bilic believes the Irons should have put last night’s game and the tie to bed and as a result isn’t deliriously happy with life.Speaking to the official site he said: “We should have scored and put the game to bed, but we didn’t and it’s 1-1 so we’re not happy with the result, but it’s not a bad result because we had a mixed team. It’s not a great result but it’s a good result and I’m confident about next week.”
“We got ahead and then they put two strikers on and took risks and they put us under pressure in the last 20 minutes, but they left space and we had a great, great chance, but unfortunately we missed it.
“As I said, we have a good result and with the greatest respect to them we should beat them, but we still have to do it. Anything can happen in one game, of course, but we are hungry to play in European football.”
Bilic was pleased with new boy Jonathan Calleri saying: “We wanted to introduce him in this game and not wait for Bournemouth, we had a couple of injuries and we wanted to save Andy Carroll and Jonathan played good. He had one really good chance and their goalkeeper saved it brilliantly.
“He doesn’t know the players and he’s only been here a short time and all that, but he showed great quality.
“With Andre, we know he is our record signing and he is out for four months and it’s a big blow, but the time will pass and he’s a good healer. He is very professional and he’s going to be back later on this year, we hope.
“It’s not the first time for us and we’ll show character and that’s what makes us such a good team.”
Doubts are beginning to appear in my mind about what Bilic is thinking at this moment. Firstly wasn’t it great to see Oxford, Burke, Byran, Calleri etc on the pitch last night, with young team he should be happy, just my opinion. However now I see his words “we wanted to save Andy” in relation to giving Calleri a game. Bilic wake up and see what the rest of us are seeing, Carroll cannot play in this system as the lone striker. How many times do we have to sit through performances like his at Chelsea before you realise it. He came on last night and what happens our performance suffers. Firstly I cannot understand why he did not bring on Fletcher and secondly the minute I saw him on I knew we were going to come under increased pressure. We have no pace up top with Carroll in the team and if he starts at the weekend I am expecting more points to be lost. I like Carroll in a two man attack so before people come on here and say I am just anti Carroll – far from it. In the current system he cannot start as he gives nothing to the team.
Spot on Johnham, Carroll is a great assett, a game changer against certain opponents and in certain situations but he shouldn’t be the first choice for every opponent or even most opponents, if Slav wants to save him then save him for matches when we are a couple of goals down and out of the game and he can ruffle the opponents or use him against teams that will have more possession than us but a weak defence.
Well,seems to me that Slav lost all your credit just between breakfast and dinner..:-)looks like short memory to me..
No jj.Most of us ain’t got short memories,we still remember the joy last season gave us & two matches at the start of this season isn’t going to change that lol
If we didn’t have something to worry about, it wouldn’t be West Ham.
I’m sure we’ll go well this season.