Slaven Bilic says new home just the start for West Ham
Friday 2 October 2015 23:43, UK
Slaven Bilic has warned that the Olympic Stadium alone will not turn West Ham into a huge club.
The Hammers leave Upton Park at the end of the season to set up home in the 54,000-seat arena in nearby Stratford.
But Bilic used a colourful metaphor to get a message across that investment in the team is just as important as a bigger number of spectators.
"If you go to a nightclub and have to pay hundreds of pounds to walk in, you can't go in with £100 or you're going to have to go to the toilet to drink water.
"We have a great stadium now but the stadium by itself will not make us a big club. Today you can't become big without one but it's not only the stadium, it is everything - the whole infrastructure.
"When you are building houses you need a school, a hospital, a cinema, a swimming pool - it's the same with a club.
"When you're building a club you need a team to match that. You can't expect the same team to play better just because you move into a stadium."
And Bilic, who has already overseen wins at Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City since taking charge in the summer, has singled out Dimitri Payet as the kind of player West Ham should be targeting on a regular basis.
He said: "We have London, the Premier League, West Ham is a good club - but this isn't going to be enough to attract big, big players. Dimitri Payet is this kind of player. Very few people believed he would come here.
"And we had big players sign for West Ham before. For example I signed for West Ham - I am joking - but Paolo Di Canio was a big name.
"It's a great step up for the club but you can't say just because of the stadium we suddenly become a big gun - but we have a good platform to build on."
