Former West Ham boss Slaven Bilic says David Sullivan wrong to make him a scapegoat over transfer policy
Slaven Bilic says West Ham co-owner David Sullivan was wrong to criticise two of the club’s players and accused him of not telling the truth over transfer policy.
In an interview with The Guardian this month, Sullivan blamed former West Ham manager Bilic for the signings of Jose Fonte and Robert Snodgrass whilst taking the credit for more successful deals such as Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini.
Bilic was sacked as West Ham manager last month after the club had won just two of their first 11 league games and Sullivan, who replaced Bilic with David Moyes, admitted in the interview he should have sacked the Croat in the summer.
But Bilic has now responded to Sullivan’s claims, explaining the inner workings of the club’s transfer strategy.
Bilic told the Daily Mail: „West Ham is my club, I am not afraid of confrontation but I don’t want it with people I got on with for two years.
„But again I have to say something. To say all the good players were him, and the bad signings were me is kind of low. And it’s simply not true.
„I don’t want to praise myself but if you ask about Lanzini, I knew about him since he was at River Plate a few years ago, I wanted to take him to Besiktas. At that time, he was too much money and went to Al Jazira.
„Let’s be honest, who knew about Lanzini before he came to England? Nobody knew and that includes the chairman. But I never treated the signings like that, like they are my players or your players. No, they were all our players, collective responsibility.
„There were three of us: the chairman, myself and Tony Henry (director of player recruitment). Agents would call any of us and we shared the information. I knew about Payet for a long time. The chairman told me he’d had a call about a player from Marseille. I said which one, and he said Payet. I said, „Yes, don’t think twice“.
„I am not going to take credit for everything but I don’t want to take all the blame either.
„Fonte and Snodgrass came in January. We were losing Payet and (Angelo) Ogbonna was having an operation, and of course the budget was limited. So we got those two new players.
„To criticise them is unfair. They came to a club in a difficult situation and helped us finish 11th so they played their part.“
Asked why he thought Sullivan decided to say those comments, Bilic said: „Maybe he felt he had to justify, not sacking me, but the appointment of Moyes.“
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