Slaven Bilic says West Ham now 'cannot wait' for their home games at the London Stadium after Huddersfield win

Slaven Bilic said that his West Ham United players now “cannot wait” for their next home games at the London Stadium. After a difficult first season here, West Ham won their first home game of the season this evening beating Huddersfield Town 2-0.

But after supposedly improving at the London Stadium in the second half of last season, Bilic said that the team now feel as if the converted athletics venue is their home. “This is becoming and it has already become our home,” Bilic said.

“We cannot wait to play here again. That is the situation now, we feel it is our home. It will never be Upton Park, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be our home.”

West Ham trained here in preparation for this match and Bilic feels that they are increasingly comfortable. “I really have a feeling, and I see the players, we trained here yesterday and the day before, we like it more and more,” he said.

“That can only come with good results and good individual performances, and good memories from the games, especially those games, the big ones. We won recently a few big ones, like Swansea, Spurs and tonight, that is why I am positive.”

This was West Ham’s first win of the season and Bilic had been tipped for the sack following their bad start, but he said that at his age – he turned 49 on Monday – he did not worry about that. “I’m 49, and I’ve been in serious football since I was 18, so for 31 years, and I know how it goes, especially today,” he said.

“But to be fair, I came to the zone where I don’t care about it in that way. I care about the team. I saw my team really focus, they showed determination, energy, that was really important to me, the thing I was focused on. All the other things, I can agree or not, but they are irrelevant, to the way I look at my job.”