Slaven Bilic says that he considers England to be a relative “oasis” of calm in the battle against football hooliganism and he has applauded the zero tolerance reactions to the crowd trouble that flared at West Ham United’s London Stadium on Wednesday night.
The manager described the violence in the stands during the 2-1 EFL Cup win against Chelsea as unacceptable and he has since seen his club promise to ban 200 supporters, who were captured on CCTV committing various offences. Bilic, who has experienced problems at stadiums in his managerial jobs in Turkey, Russia and his native Croatia, also sought to highlight the blanket condemnation in the media of Wednesday’s flashpoints.
“I’ve been in those environments before, unfortunately,” he said. “Whether that’s in Turkey, or even at home, and a few times even in Russia. But I didn’t expect it here. England was so far clear of it. Of course it’s a worldwide problem.
“To be fair it’s a great reaction from the media about this. It should be stopped from the beginning. You don’t want to say: ‘Yeah, they have the same problems abroad, it’s worldwide’ and then it grows. On the other hand, it’s much less here than anywhere. We have those few countries who don’t have it – England, Germany.
“I don’t know about France. When PSG are playing Marseille, it’s like ‘Mayday’. You are an oasis, one of the few, and that is still very good. And it’s great when the media is a little bit over-reacting, because it should be zero tolerance. Actually there’s no such thing as over-reacting.”
Bilic said he had been unable to ignore the footage from the game against Chelsea. He was ill on Thursday and he did not take the session with his squad, spending the day indoors, at the training ground, instead – with Sky Sports News for company. The TV channel showed, on loop, the clips of the Chelsea supporter who had breached the segregation line at the stadium and more of offending West Ham fans. “Sky television is there, 24/7, in the restaurant [at the training ground] and, every time I looked, it was that guy from Chelsea,” Bilic said. “Or our fans, who had done it. I was expecting Cheikhou Kouyaté’s header [which put West Ham 1-0 up] to be there.”
Bilic was asked whether he felt West Ham’s reputation had been dragged through the gutter by the minority. “Yes,” he replied. “It does hurt. Of course it does. The club didn’t deserve it; the players don’t deserve it, definitely; the fans didn’t deserve it. The majority of them, of course. The big majority.”
Bilic was delighted with the on-field events against Chelsea and, after a difficult start to the season, he feels that his team have turned a corner. The low points, he said, were back-to-back 4-2 defeats against Watford and West Bromwich Albion last month and it was a time, according to him, when they had lost focus and were making too many sloppy mistakes.
“The Watford game brought us into the situation where we had a bad moment against West Brom and, suddenly, it’s two games and you are like: ‘Oh My God,’” Bilic said. “And then, you are a little bit shaky against Accrington [in the EFL Cup]. One game is enough, one half is enough or one bad five minutes of the first-half, where you go from being two-up to 2-2, as we did against Watford. So, it’s unpredictable.”
Bilic said that the squad had refused to panic, dug in and given a strong response. The 1-0 victory at Crystal Palace, which was the start of the current three-match winning streak in all competitions, was the turning point – “It was the biggest relief, let’s say” – and Bilic’s team will go to Everton on Sunday in confident mood. Players such as Aaron Cresswell and André Ayew have returned from injury and new tactical ideas such as the 3-4-3 formation have been bedded in.
“What is crucial is how you react when you go into that shape,” Bilic said. “Are you panicking? Are you losing faith? We need to continue like this to come into a position that we want. I don’t want to talk now like we’re out of everything. It’s getting better.”
