Slaven Bilic was still beaming after Saturday’s impressive draw at Manchester United added to West Ham United’s superb collection of away results this season.
Bilic said that the nature of the Hammers’ performance – which follows impressive away wins at Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City - will give them belief going into an intensive run of games over the Christmas period. Stoke City are up next at the Boleyn Ground this Satul6rday and the manager will almost certainly be replaying clips of his side’s Old Trafford performance in a bid to fire them up for the game.
“You can talk, you can do analysis, you can prepare but the best way the players are going to believe it is when they have done it,” Bilic explained.
“You could have prepared the game by saying how things should be done by showing them something from some other club, but I can do it using our team from almost every single game.”
Bilic explained that he had briefed his players to exploit the hosts’ attacking intent and so it proved as the visitors created by far the best chances. Victor Moses, Mauro Zarate, twice, and Winston Reid all went close to securing the winner before late United pressure required some outstanding defence work from the Hammers’ backline.
“I told the players yesterday and at half time that at 0-0 the longer the game goes they are giving you more spaces and they are risking more and they don’t track back immediately so it presents more opportunity.
“The chances were key moments that you get when you play Manchester United as you can’t expect that you‘ll get five or ten of them. That moment you have to score if you want to win anywhere, especially at Old Trafford.
Moses passed up a good one-on-one opportunity after being played in by Noble, Zarate hit the post from close range, Reid headed a corner against the frame, before Zarate missed arguably the best chance of the lot after being played in by Andy Carroll. Bilic, however, believes those misses did not necessarily define the game
“The players responded really well and it was a very good point for us, especially when you consider the historic results between West Ham and Manchester United. They have only conceded one goal at home and we had four of our best offensive players out, so to put that performance on was superb.
“We didn’t only defend, on the contrary, we created enough chances against them and it was a very good day for us.
“But you never know in football. If we had scored then we might have lost 2-1!”