Slaven Bilic revels in West Ham's 'great night' at Wembley - and even cracks a joke

It summed up Slaven Bilic’s feeling of relief that he could afford to laugh about one last little mistake at Wembley, on a night when West Ham United rectified so many big ones on what he terms a “great night for the club”.

The Croatian had spoken about how there should now be no “long noses” in his squad for Saturday’s crunch game against Crystal Palace after this 3-2 League Cup fourth-round win over Tottenham Hotspur - and repeated it, only to be asked what it meant.

Bilic realised he actually meant “long faces”, and walked out of his press conference chuckling. It made a change, and he maintains it could mean a change for West Ham, as well as giving the lie to the idea that he only had two games left.

Bilic feels that this comeback can give his side “energy” and “freshness”, while the resolve his team displayed tonight shows that they have been getting better despite the 3-0 home defeat to Brighton and Hove Albion last Friday.

“Other than Brighton, we improved a lot in the last six games,” the West Ham boss said. “This should be the standard for us in terms of closing down, in terms of sacrificing for the team. Some games we may lose, but I am quite positive we are improving.

“The wins give you energy, give you freshness. Now tomorrow at the training ground, nobody is going to feel tired.”

Having watched his side go 2-0 down by half-time, Bilic said that he told them to stay calm at half-time, but also to be that bit braver.

“For me, first half was very bad for us… Our crosses was [sic] very bad. Our movement in the box was not good enough,” Bilic said.

open image in gallery

“I told them to calm down, to do some things better when they were having the ball, especially [Manuel] Lanzini and [Edimilson] Fernandes, and to start to be braver on the ball. And I told them that we are still in the game, and that goal is the decisive one. In the second half, we were closing down much better. Suddenly we score the goal, and gained energy, our crosses started to be world-class crosses to be fair, very hard for them to defend.

“From then, we scored, and we deserved it. It’s a great night for the club.

“The running, the tempo, the closing down, I can feel we are in a rhythm, they are not in a rhythm.

“Then the second goal came [to make it 2-2] and you can still lose 4-2 [from that position], but it’s you who are in charge.”

Asked about Mauricio Pochettino stating that Tottenham let West Ham back into the game, Bilic said: “They don’t concede three goals quite often. I don’t remember the last time they did. They were a little bit ‘job done’. Once they did that, it’s very hard to get back in the game.

“Maybe that happened a bit, but from my point of view it’s us that changed game not them. Still it’s not easy to score three goals. We can do it, you know, as I said the goals affect us. We conceded two goals and didn’t stop playing.”