Slaven Bilic vowed that the Hammers will learn from Saturday's defeat
Slaven Bilic vowed that his West Ham United side will learn from their mistakes from the Leicester defeat when the host AFC Bournemouth this Saturday.
Despite an improved second half performance, Bilic explained that he was not happy with the Hammers’ first half performance.
“We weren’t good enough at winning second balls and dealing with long balls. Leicester were getting all of them, there are plenty of those situations in a football game, and if you lose the majority of them then it is impossible to win.
“I wasn’t angry at half-time. You have to be reasonable, I can’t be angry if they scored a good goal, and their second was a good goal. But I can’t accept that too many times, we weren’t doing the basics, and that makes it much harder. If you don’t win the first ball, you have to run, 20, 40 metres back to recover and that is a waste of energy.”
While the manager may have been disappointed with his first home game, he said he remained confident that his squad could bounce back at the earliest opportunity, another home game against Premier League new boys AFC Bournemouth.
“We are not going to panic, we knew what we had before the game. For West Ham it is not that uncommon to beat Arsenal and then lose the next match. After a great start we knew that it was going to be a difficult and tough game, every game is a tough one.
“In football, you have many results like Saturday’s where, somehow, clubs find it easier to play away games. They are not under the same pressure to win or to play well. On the other hand you have to use your home crowd to make it easier for you.
“Football is all about confidence; naturally you will have more confidence when you’re 2-0 up then 2-0 down. Sometimes we have to take more responsibility with the ball.”
Despite an improved second half performance, Bilic explained that he was not happy with the Hammers’ first half performance.
“We weren’t good enough at winning second balls and dealing with long balls. Leicester were getting all of them, there are plenty of those situations in a football game, and if you lose the majority of them then it is impossible to win.
“I wasn’t angry at half-time. You have to be reasonable, I can’t be angry if they scored a good goal, and their second was a good goal. But I can’t accept that too many times, we weren’t doing the basics, and that makes it much harder. If you don’t win the first ball, you have to run, 20, 40 metres back to recover and that is a waste of energy.”
While the manager may have been disappointed with his first home game, he said he remained confident that his squad could bounce back at the earliest opportunity, another home game against Premier League new boys AFC Bournemouth.
“We are not going to panic, we knew what we had before the game. For West Ham it is not that uncommon to beat Arsenal and then lose the next match. After a great start we knew that it was going to be a difficult and tough game, every game is a tough one.
“In football, you have many results like Saturday’s where, somehow, clubs find it easier to play away games. They are not under the same pressure to win or to play well. On the other hand you have to use your home crowd to make it easier for you.
“Football is all about confidence; naturally you will have more confidence when you’re 2-0 up then 2-0 down. Sometimes we have to take more responsibility with the ball.”