I’M NOT A BROKEN MAN. I’M READY TO GO AGAIN
IN HIS FIRST INTERVIEW SINCE LEAVING WEST HAM, SLAVEN BILIC SAYS
It’s 11am on thursday and a familiar face enters the Four seasons hotel near his home in tower Hill, London.
Clean-shaven and carefree, scarf tucked neatly over a dark top, slaven Bilic picks a table by the grand piano in the lounge, orders a cappuccino and beds in for a long chat. His next appointment isn’t until 4pm, when he has to collect his daughter sofi from nursery.
‘It is good and necessary to rest,’ he says, almost six weeks after being sacked by West Ham.
‘People think you’d want to use the spare time to do something big, like walk from the North Pole to south Pole. No, it is about having time and the space in your head for simple things with family and friends. And in between, even enjoy that feeling of being a little bit bored.’
Bilic exaggerates about the boredom bit. since clearing his desk, he has returned home to Croatia, holidayed in Dubai and met up for lunch with his old staff, including Hammers legend Julian Dicks. ‘We did analyse what happened, but not like a meeting, on paper,’ he smiles.
Most days, he also spends an hour in the gym: treadmill, cross-trainer, sit-ups on the mat. ‘If I don’t go, I get a bit cranky,’ he confesses. ‘You are by yourself in the gym, you can think.’
He often wears headphones for the workouts, music ranging from Croatian songs of his youth to heavy rock, Pink Floyd or Chopin. Only when Iron Maiden comes on does his mind wander back.
‘I know them well,’ he says. ‘the bass player steve Harris played football for West Ham’s youth team, so he is crazy for the club. He lives in three different places but, when he was in London, he would pop to the game and then into my office after.’
Bilic has also been watching a lot of football on television. ‘More than ever probably,’ he says. ‘My favourite was Arsenal-Manchester United. It was like a great movie, you didn’t want it to stop. I picked up my phone afterwards because I wanted to share it. “Did you watch the game? It was brilliant. Brilliant!”
‘Of course I still watch football. I haven’t lost interest, what did you expect? I am not a broken man.’
the last statement is said with emphasis. As we speak, if he hadn’t been sacked, Bilic would have been back working at the training ground after West Ham’s match against Arsenal, instead of being interviewed.
‘I’d have got home from the match about midnight, still up for it, either buzzing or down if we’d lost,’ he says. ‘Eventually, you fall asleep, and by 8am, you’re back in the car, regeneration training for the players, normal training for guys who didn’t play. West Ham are playing again saturday, so you can’t give a day off. there is no time.’
It’s a pressured existence and one that Bilic has followed for 16 years in charge of Hajduk split, Croatia — at both senior and Under-21 level, Lokomotiv Moscow, Besiktas and West Ham, on top of a successful playing career in Croatia, Germany and England.
some thought that Hammers owners David sullivan and David Gold did him a favour by sacking him after two wins in 11 league games, because it looked like the 49-year-old had become a haunted man.
‘One person says it, other people follow and they put up a picture to go with the story,’ says the Croat, dismissing the notion. ‘I’m an expressive person. If you saw me after Wilfried Zaha had scored for Palace against us after 97 minutes, I look a broken man.
‘But for 96 minutes, I was as lively as ever. I knew what was coming after we lost the next game 4-1 to Liverpool, but I wasn’t wishing for it.
‘You can’t achieve what I have without an inner strength. I had to fight for everything to come from a small country and become a recognised player in the Premier League — and then do the same as a manager.
‘Without special belief, you wouldn’t go that far. that hasn’t changed. Okay, I felt bad in front of the cameras when we lost to Liverpool, but I was exactly the same when we’d been beaten 3-0 at Newcastle.
‘some managers are better at pretending. Maybe it is better for my job to not say what happened on the pitch. But, at the end of the day, you can’t be something you’re not. If we were s***, I would say. And I always took responsibility.’
Bilic has always been popular with fans, even when Croatia won at Wembley to knock England out of Euro 2008 qualification. He took his players shopping at Harrods on the day of the game and seemed to treat them like sons.
this positive man-management helped West Ham finish seventh in his first season in charge.
they slipped to 11th the following year after a poor start and this campaign had been a struggle from the opening day, a 4-0 defeat at Manchester United.
the Hammers were forced to play their first three league games away from the London stadium because of the World Athletics Championships — and lost all of them.
Marquee summer signing Marko Arnautovic was sent off in the second match of the season at southampton and Bilic was playing catch-up thereafter.
David Moyes rang him soon after getting the job.
‘I’ve known him since he was at Everton, we would have chats about his striker Nikica Jelavic, who also played for Croatia,’ says Bilic.
‘We had a relaxed chat about West Ham — why not? — but the details aren’t for the paper. to be fair, a lot of the things he said were exactly the points I would have made. He didn’t need me to tell him a lot of things as he still has (goalkeeping coach) Chris Woods, who was there with me from day one.’
there is a notion that Moyes has already made the team fitter, given that West Ham covered less yardage than any other team at the start of the season.
Bilic says the statistics were selective. ‘We had players sent off in the first half of two games and that affects the stats, because their yardage is zero after that. someone calculated the running table without the games against southampton and Burnley. We weren’t top, but we weren’t bottom. We also had our most athletic players Michail Antonio, Cheikhou Kouyate, Manuel Lanzini injured.
‘But okay, there is an element with a change of manager, the new brush