Slaven Bilic has expanded on the brief comments he made to the BBC immediately after the match.
And without making excuses has questioned whether the team can be expected to play much better with Carroll, without Payet, without Lanzini, without Sakho and without Moses?
Answering his own question he declares: “It’s too much.”
He said that with no disrespect to any player it is all about the squad and that was why we got a point before asking whether more could be expected of a team without such players.
He told West Ham TV said: “The guys played really well and put in great effort to gain a point and that’s why I am really pleased with the performance from the team.”
He added: “OK, we played without these players and we did so against Man United and against Stoke and in every one of those games we should have scored a goal.
“With two or three of those players back, not even all of them, I have a feeling that we would have definitely scored one or two goals per game.
“It’s great for us to continue our unbeaten run. Second, it’s our third straight clean sheet and third, we are expecting some of those players to come back very, very soon.”
With this arguably being the most unpredictable season in Barclays Premier League history, there appear to be no ‘gimmes’ anywhere.
“Swansea are a good team and that’s how I presented them to the guys on Saturday night. We spoke about them and they are a good side who have not been lucky enough to score goals.
“They have their qualities and they did not forget to play football. If you see them attack, of course they have a lot of quality. We defended with the whole team and, as I said, they deserve praise and this is a really good point.
And he didn’t forget to send each of us the greetings of the season saying: “Merry Christmas to all the Hammers! We are going to try to do everything to make you even happier and proud of us than you are,” he smiled.
“We need you all, especially when we are short of options. We feel you all behind us, as you always are and we’re going to do our best to make this Christmas period a happy one for you!”
Full credit to Bilic, he’s not one to blame or finger point and has pulled the best out of our players. Jelavic dreadful lacking any legs or control. Great work rate by Ginge and Ogbonna…both deserved to be man of the match. From the start we had no presence or assertion in the mid field. Swansea were dreadful in the final third which saved us in the end, along with some good defensive work. I rate Zarate and contrary to what other media say on his performance today, he took the ball to the opposition. He may hog the ball at times but it’s good to see him run at defenders drawing them in and opening space up, even if he might lose the ball in process the odd time. Overall, it is clear we are hurting from not having Sakho, Payet, Lanzini and Moses, whilst Zarate and Antonio are good to have play in with these key players. Great to have a positive manager active on the sidelines. Bilic will come storming into the new year with a near full fit squad as players return from the table.
And still the morons in the press/radio will say how we haven’t won,, blah blah blah
Still a happy hammer,
Only 4 league defeats the whole season,
Not the greatest of games but we could still have won,
Slav still leads by example great words today again,
Ginge you were brilliant