Friday 8 September 2017 15:38, UK
Slaven Bilic has denied West Ham co-owner David Sullivan's claim that he rejected the chance to sign Renato Sanches and Grzegorz Krychowiak this summer.
Bilic had hoped to bring Sporting Lisbon midfielder William Carvalho to the London Stadium prior to the close of the summer transfer window, but the Hammers were unable to agree a deal with their Portuguese counterparts.
Sullivan claimed last week that Sanches and Krychowiak were offered to Bilic before their respective switches to Swansea and West Brom, only for the Croatian to turn down the opportunity to sign either player.
But when asked about Sullivan's comments, Bilic said: "He likes to talk. It's his right, but all I said is that I wanted a player and that is not exactly what happened with those two players that you have mentioned.
"I wanted Carvalho and we were in the middle of talking about Carvalho, it looked very, very likely that the deal would happen.
"To be fair during my time at West Ham, it is very, very common that when you talk about one player and it looks like it's going to happen, suddenly two or three other names somebody throws them in.
"Normally that distracts you from the main target. That's what happened there as well. It was very likely that we were going to get that player. The other two players are very good players, of course they are."
