Slaven Bilic hits back at David Sullivan over West Ham transfer claims

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James Benge16 December 2017

Former West Ham manager Slaven Bilic has accused David Sullivan of a “low” blow after criticising him for the cub's transfer policy during his reign in east London.

Bilic was sacked in November after only two league wins in their opening 11 games, with David Moyes taking his place in the London Stadium dugout.

The matter of transfers proved to be a thorny one during Bilic’s two-and-a-half year stint as West Ham manager, with successes such as Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini counterbalanced by disastrous moves for the likes of Simone Zaza and Gokhan Tore.

However Bilic has insisted it is unfair that he is being made to carry the can for a transfer process that included significant input from director of recruitment Tony Henry and Sullivan.

“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,” Bilic told the Daily Mail. “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.

“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. 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."

Bilic also confirmed in the interview that he was ready to return to management scarcely more than a month after being let go by the Hammers.

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