BILIC: THE FIRST INTERVIEW SINCE WEST HAM AXE
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 neatly tucked 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’s 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’d 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. 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, one that Bilic has followed for 16 years in charge of Hajduk split, Croatia Under 21s, Croatia, 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,’ he says, 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. OK, 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 they lost them all.
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 because 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. Somebody 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 OK, there is an element with a change of manager, the new brush is a better brush. It happened at Leicester with Ranieri, when Shakespeare came. They were suddenly flying. Now it is happening with Puel in for Shakespeare.’
One thing Bilic told Moyes was that he had inherited a decent squad. Summer signings Joe Hart, Pablo Zabaleta and Arnautovic didn’t work out quickly enough for Bilic but he says: ‘They are all Premier League players. Some of them needed a goal to get that recognition from fans but they are good players. They are at West Ham for a good reason.’
Despite four points from games against Chelsea and Arsenal, the Hammers head to Stoke today a place lower than they were when Bilic left. He will feel a few pangs of regret next week when they face Arsenal in the Carabao Cup quarter-final. Their 3-2 win at Spurs in the last round had led Bilic to dream of becoming the first West Ham manager since John Lyall in 1980 to win a major trophy.
The presence on mainstream and social media of West Ham’s powerbrokers Sullivan, Gold and Karren Brady, and some of their offspring, undoubtedly complicated Bilic’s job. The manager had a good working relationship with Sullivan, and has no desire to get involved in a slanging match.
However, a recent interview with Sullivan in which he appeared to take credit for all West Ham’s good signings (Dimitri Payet, Lanzini) and blame Bilic for the less successful deals ( Jose Fonte, Robert Snodgrass) has compelled the Croat to respond for fear of being used as a scapegoat.
‘West Ham is my club. I am not afraid of confrontation but I don’t want it with people I got on with for two years. But again I have to say something,’ he says. ‘To say all the good players were him, and the bad signings were me is kind of low. And it’s simply not true.
‘I don’t want to praise myself but if you ask about Lanzini, I knew about him since he was at River Plate a few years ago, I wanted to take him to Besiktas. At that time, he was too much money and went to Al Jazira (in Abu Dhabi).
‘ Let’s be honest, who knew about Lanzini before he came to England? Nobody knew and that includes the chairman. But I never treated the signings like that, like they are my players or your players. No, they were all our players, collective responsibility.
‘There were three of us: the chairman, myself and Tony Henry (director of player recruitment). Agents would call any of us and we shared the information. I knew about Payet for a long time. The chairman told me he’d had a call about a player from Marseille. I said which one, and he said Payet. I said, “Yes, don’t think twice”.
‘I am not going to take credit for everything but I don’t want to take all the blame either. Fonte and Snodgrass came in January. We were losing Payet and Ogbonna was having an operation, and of course the budget was limited. So we got those two new players. To criticise them is unfair. They came to a club in a difficult situation and helped us finish 11th so they played their part.’
Why does he think Sullivan chose to snipe at him when Bilic had already left? ‘Maybe he felt he had to justify, not sacking me, but the appointment of Moyes. I hope it is going to change after these great couple of results against Chelsea and Arsenal. I hope they build on that. I’ve been a West Ham fan from the day I signed for them.
‘We tried to make West Ham a top-six club because of one great season and moving to the new stadium. Unfortunately we didn’t follow with everything; of course as manager I take responsibility.’
Bilic hopes that he and West Ham can get on with their own futures and remember the good times: wins against every member of the Premier League’s Big Six and cup runs to the quarter-finals in each of his three seasons.
He received interest from several clubs including West Brom within a fortnight of being fired but felt it was too early to return. However, six weeks off seems to have done wonders for his appetite.
‘I know where I stand in the map of world managers,’ he says. ‘I can afford a break but can’t switch off my phone for a year like Guardiola or Mourinho.
‘It’s weird. I keep telling myself, “I was at West Ham only a few weeks ago, take a bit longer”. On the other hand, I feel so rested. I am ready. You don’t always realise your batteries need recharging when you are in the middle of everything.
‘It’s always better to go into a job at the start of the season but football can’t be perfect. If the right one comes next week, it’s something that comes.’
In the meantime, he’s staying in London with his partner Ivana and their two young c hildren.
‘I like England,’ he says. ‘I have proved myself here. I don’t feel like a stranger.’
‘To say all the bad signings were me is kind of low. And it’s simply not true’
‘I can’t switch off my phone for a year like Pep or Jose’