Slaven Bilic holds up a finger and flicks it like the rev counter in a car. The calibration of a high-performance engine is not unlike that of a top-level footballer. The margins between purring and stalling, the West Ham United manager explains, come down to percentage points; to details that he refers to as practically “invisible”.
This time last season, under his predecessor Sam Allardyce, West Ham sat fourth in the Premier League, on the back of a home win over Manchester City and they were still in fourth before the Boxing Day fixtures, after another home win against Leicester City.
What happened over the second half of the season – or, more precisely, the final 21 league matches – cost Allardyce his job and serves as a warning to West Ham fans dreaming of the Champions League, with their club up in third going into Saturday’s visit to Watford, where a win could put them top.
There were many reasons for the slump, including the break-up of the Diafra Sakho-Enner Valencia partnership, Alex Song’s loss of form, injuries exposing gaps in the squad, tactical concerns and, towards the end, the uncertainly over Allardyce’s future. The bottom line, however, was that the team won only three further league games to trail in 12th.
Bilic has started brilliantly, accumulating the scalps of Arsenal, Liverpool, City and Chelsea, but he has been around long enough to know that it is all about how he and his players finish.
Can West Ham maintain their levels over the course of a gruelling season or, even, raise them? It is the question that stalks Bilic, albeit in a good way, and, even though he is not generally a guy to see the lessons of history as the way forward, it is clear he has scrutinised West Ham’s matches from last time out.
“In the first half of last season, in some games, we were a bit lucky,” Bilic said. “We were winning 2-0 after 10 or 15 minutes and then the opponent hit the post but in the second half of the season, in some games, we were unlucky. Let’s say the game against Man United at Upton Park [when United scrambled an injury-time draw].
“After, you are in a comfort zone. You lose a little bit of your motivation because you know you can’t catch those [teams] that dream [of the top four] and, on the other hand, you are not as hungry as Leicester were because they were fighting for their lives. It’s that 2% or 5%. It’s invisible. It’s that which is the difference from overdrive to a comfort zone. That’s it. That’s enough.”
Bilic said that he goes game by game in terms of his specific preparations but he revealed that the season has been planned in relation to fitness and other details. “Should we give the players more days off now in November because it’s the last international break?” Bilic said. “We are planning in that way. We are planning the trainings because of the fitness and because of this and because of that.
“My job is to keep the players on their toes and motivated. That is what we are focused on; analysing the side, planning trainings, to keep them like that and not lose that two or 5%, which is crucial.”
Bilic is making no promises – and as well he should not. Since the Premier League’s inception in 1992, only 13 clubs have finished in the top four and the exclusive club is dominated by a handful of members. West Ham have never made it.
“You can have surprises in the cups in any country,” Bilic said. “We have three Championship clubs in the last eight of the Capital One Cup. In a league, though, it’s very difficult. The season is too big but it is possible. All the clubs in England should hope and dream. Otherwise, what is the point of playing?”
Bilic exudes a relaxed confidence and he is certainly more understated than, say, the club’s co-chairman David Sullivan, who on Thursday said he did not want to rule out a title triumph. “I’m not talking it down, I want to talk it up,” Sullivan told West Ham’s website. “I believe it’s achievable. Look at what’s gone wrong with Chelsea – that looked an impossibility – so why shouldn’t the opposite happen to us?”
There is a strut about West Ham right now and the rare sense that here is a staff who are not wedded to sanitised football ways and who are actually having a bit of fun. David Gold, the other co-chairman, caught the mood after the home win over Chelsea last Saturday, when he tweeted a picture of José Mourinho standing in the tunnel with the group of boys who were West Ham’s mascots. The caption? “OK who would like to play for Chelsea next week?”
Bilic has a deeper squad than Allardyce had and he has seen players come off the substitutes’ bench to make the difference. Against Chelsea, Winston Reid, Song and Victor Moses were unavailable but it did not matter. Most encouragingly, Bilic is going for it in every game in a positive and balanced style.
“We are confident,” Bilic said. “I don’t see a reason why we should drop dramatically. We are respecting opponents but not fearing them. It is early to say where the limits are for this team. What is definite is that we have lots of room to improve.”
