Slaven Bilic vows to turn around West Ham's poor defence
Sunday 18 September 2016 14:44, UK
Slave Bilic has vowed to improve West Ham's defensive displays after they conceded four goals for a second week in a row against West Brom on Saturday.
The Hammers manager had already spent the week before working on his side's resilience but apparently with no success as West Ham lost their third successive Premier League game.
West Brom's Nacer Chadli, on his home debut, Salomon Rondon and James McClean scored before half-time and Chadli grabbed his second goal of the game to put the Baggies 4-0 in front after 56 minutes.
"I have to do everything as the manager to turn this around, that's my job," said Bilic, who saw his team reply with two goals in the space of four minutes just after the hour mark through Michail Antonio and Manuel Lanzini, from the penalty spot.
"We will go over it again - we can't concede so many goals. It is fundamentally defending as a team and if you add individual mistakes, it becomes too much. I mean, we've conceded 13 goals from the start of the season and that's simply too many."
Bilic was particularly frustrated when West Brom scored their fourth goal because he believed it could have been avoided.
Full-back Arthur Masuaku, guilty of the two handballs which led to West Brom's first penalty goal, was at fault as his low cross following a short corner was cut out by Darren Fletcher.
Rondon, at this point midway inside his own half, was then set clean through on goal by Fletcher. Chadli made a lung-bursting run to support the Venezuelan, who set him up for a tap-in inside the penalty area.
Bilic said: "I was angry, disappointed and felt all sorts of emotions - their first goal was totally unnecessary and the fourth one - well.
"The fourth goal is like the one you can live with if you concede it in the 94th minute when you send your goalkeeper up and all that. But it was the 54th minute or something like that.
"At the time we were still in the game, it sounds strange at 3-0 but we were a goal then for 3-1 and who knows? Then another goal?
"It's not like a tactical mistake or you are not fit enough, it is that you are just not standing where you should be standing. And nobody is recognising the situation. That goal was hard to take.
"When we defend like that it's hard to expect anything, comebacks or whatever. You can't win games defending like that."
Meanwhile, Chadli, who joined the Baggies for a club-record fee of £13m from Tottenham over the summer, wowed The Hawthorns with his goal-scoring partnership with striker Rondon.
West Brom assistant boss Dave Kemp believes the Belgian newcomer could be used to make the best of his 27-year-old team-mate.
"Rondon is an excellent player, let's be honest," said Kemp. "He got an excellent goal and he's quite capable of doing that on a regular basis.
"He's done it in pieces since he's been here but he's quite capable of doing that every week.
"He's a terrific talent and when you've got people like Chadli around him, hopefully you'll get the reward from that."
