West Ham manager Slaven Bilic was frank about the need to improve the quality in West Ham’s squad after the 4-0 loss to Liverpool at the weekend.
The Hammers were without a number of senior players due to injury for the match on Sunday, and the Croatian believes there are a “few positions” that require improvement in terms of quality over the summer. He told the club’s official website:
“We need quality in a few positions that we need to improve. For a lot of games, we were without more than a few players and sometimes we coped with it and played really good and people said ‘We don’t need anyone’ but over the long term, over the season, we need more quality.”
The club’s recruitment has come in for major scrutiny after a disastrous summer transfer window followed by a January window where players that were signed have also failed to impress.
Since joining from Hull City for £10.2m, Robert Snodgrass has played 14 times, and provided two assists, and scored no goals. He had hit the back of the net nine times for the Tigers in the first half of the season, but the 29 year old has now not started since the 2-2 draw against Sunderland in mid April.
Jose Fonte hasn’t fared much better. After signing from Southampton for £8m, the Portuguese international has played regularly, starting 15 matches, but despite four clean sheets, the West Ham defence has also conceded 27 goals in that run of games.
