For Slaven Bilic becoming the manager of West Ham United was like buying a dog. “When you are buying a dog you find like this – 10 reasons not to buy it,” he says. “Because you can’t go out more, if you are travelling it’s a problem, he’s going to pee there and there until he learns. He’s going to bite your cat, he’s going to leave your place smelly.”
Then there is a pause before Bilic proceeds. “But there is one reason that’s good – he loves you, he loves you,” he says, with emphasis. “He gives you love. Every time you come home it’s like it’s the first time he’s seen you. So it’s only about the way you approach it. If you approach this life as if it’s half-empty, like this glass [tapping the glass of water in front of him]. Then I can say it’s half-full and look at it. Yes, it’s half-full. So like this with West Ham. There was, there still is, and it’s always going to be (a risk).”
He is an engaging, charismatic, hard-working character is Slaven Bilic – the 47-year-old Croat who arrived at West Ham as a player in 1996 and left such an impression, and forged such a bond, that he gained a cult status despite staying just 15 months and playing 58 games. His return as manager last summer, to lead the club in its final campaign before it leaves Upton Park after 112 years and makes the historic move to the Olympic Stadium, always seemed like destiny. He really wanted the job.
Bilic is enjoying life back at West Ham
Bilic’s shaggy dog story is in response to a question as to whether he ever feared that going back would ruin the legacy; the aura he had at the club he “loves”.
“There is one player, and I like him, Shota Arveladze, he’s from Georgia,” Bilic explains, expanding on another story for a man brimming with anecdotes, ideas and life experiences. “Shota played for Trabzonspor, which is a big Turkish club. At Trabzonspor he made a big name there and then he went to Ajax, then Rangers. He was a really good striker. Then in my time at Besiktas he was the coach of Kasimpasa which is a good club from Istanbul.
“Then Trabzanspor were always trying to make him come as a coach, as the manager. But he said ‘no’. For two years, I think, he said no. He said ‘the only club I ain’t going to manage is Trabzanspor because I am a hero there and I don’t want to ruin it’. That is always the possibility.
“Then at the beginning of this season, he went there. He left after, I don’t know, two and a half months. I haven’t spoken to him but probably he ruined a little bit the legacy. So there’s always that chance but it’s like in everything. With everything there is one per cent, five per cent, 50 per cent risk that you ain’t going to turn out that good.”
There is another pause. Then he adds: “But that’s no reason not to take a job. There is turbulence. But it is basically a choice and I opted to make a choice and to make a choice to enjoy.
The Croatian made quite an impact during a short playing stint at Upton Park
“To work hard, to work like crazy but to enjoy the Premier League. So try to work every day to improve the team. But, at the same time, to enjoy. Why should I think now about what will happen if something happens? No, I have a game at Old Trafford and I want to enjoy that game. I want to enjoy that game with West Ham because I deserve it, I love it and I want it as a good memory and to try and win the game.”
West Ham – a depleted West Ham – drew away to Manchester United but they have won at Arsenal, at Manchester City and at Liverpool, who they host at Upton Park tomorrow with Jurgen Klopp one of the few Premier League managers who rivals Bilic in the big personality stakes.
Bilic knows all about the ‘rock n’roll Slaven’ image – an image that was established long before Klopp’s heavy metal football – but he is a serious, diligent, analytical, confident football manager. As well as one with a human touch, admitting dropping players is the hardest part of then job, allied to a fierce work ethic. He can also say, without arrogance, that he knows he is “good”.
“That rock n’roll thing…” Bilic says. “There are lots of other things to management, different things. I know everything about tactics. I can talk about tactics with whoever. All I am saying is that a football manager’s job is not only tactics. It’s not only that. Tactics, you have to have that knowledge otherwise you have no chance. You are short-term if you are hugging the player and he scores three goals. Long-term without that knowledge you are dead, no chance. The players find this out.”
And Bilic has impressed with his tactics. He can certainly organise and motivate a team. Along with a string of famous wins and, despite injuries, only Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City have lost fewer league matches this season than West Ham's four.
Bilic says he must act as a brother and father to his players
Still Bilic thinks there is a lot of gobbledygook spouted by some coaches. “The more serious face you put in, the more you look like a philosopher then the more of a tactician you are (regarded as),” he says. “The more strange words you are using, the more knowledge you have. I can talk all day. I also went to school. I also have, with no disrespect to anybody, my education – whether a football one or out of football – which is hard and difficult to match. I studied law at university and I studied with Uefa for my licence, two years in Croatia, to become a football manager.
“So I can use those scientific words every day and people will probably think ‘oh, yeah’. But I prefer to talk simply. Because for me football is a very simple sport. But people are trying to, for some reason, and obviously because there is so much money in it, make it like ‘big-time complicated’.
“This job that I am doing is everything but simple – you have to be tactician, you have to be father, you have to brother and it requires effort and energy and knowledge. But it is still a very simple game.
“I found it that the more up you go on a level, the simpler it is when you talk to people. For me, I find it much simpler to talk football with top, top coaches in the world than I had it talking with some students or some lower league coaches. When I speak to a top coach and ask him about his methods he says to me ‘look he’s quick’ ‘or ‘he gets up and down’. In Croatia if I spoke with someone from the Croatian first league or second league then they never say ‘he’s quick’ or ‘he’s fast’. They say ‘listen, his anaerobic endurance is 1.2 cross metres squared in a second’. And then people on the next table, the chairmen, say ‘oh, he’s clever’.’ The higher you go, okay, there are still metrics, but the higher you go the more simple it is. They are talking like fans.”
Bilic’s approach is built on simple hard work. Demanding hard work. He admits he sometimes does not have the head-space for normal life. “This job, it drains you…I don’t have time to go to Madame Tussaud’s,” he says describing pressure as an “adrenalin”. “I have time to go there – I can say to my wife ‘let’s go’ – but I don’t have time in my memory. I don’t have time in my head for that. If the day was not 24 hours but 36 then maybe.
Bilic bemoans the fact that there are not enough hours in the day
“There are always ideas. I speak to my assistants 10 times a day. Nicola (Jurcevic) 10 times a day, Edin (Terzic) 10 times a day…‘How are we going to do this? How are we going to play? Should I change the system? What do you think of this?’ and especially now when we have injuries.”
His demanding work ethic can be a shock to players – especially, interestingly, those in the Premier League with Bilic saying it is a “myth” that it is physically “more intense” than other leagues.
“The only thing that is different in the English way is that they train less than in Europe,” Bilic says. “My philosophy is to train. I had to adapt myself here in that way because there is no point in changing everything at once from the start but here the problem was old-fashioned. The old English school was that you had to have two days off in the week, while in Europe it is one day off.
“You can’t play the whole season on freshness. There is also an argument you can gain fitness through games because they are the best training. Right, that is also true, fresh, fresh, fresh, game, fresh, fresh, fresh, game. Ok, but my opinion is to last long without injuries in the high-intensity this league is, you have to train.
“Here [claps his hands urgently] they don't have (a winter) break, they pump in more games to be fair. So maybe you can't copy and paste the European way but I am trying to do something in between.”
However Bilic, the former Croatian national team who has also worked in Russia and Turkey, is in no doubt that the Premier League is the place to be. “Ok, you still have Spain, the Bundesliga, but this Premier League is the NBA,” he says (and he is also a basketball fan). “This is the NBA of football. Although the best teams are maybe not from England - you are talking about Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich - but the actual league, this is the league to be in. It is very competitive.”
Competitive and, this season in particular, wildly unpredictable. West Ham have acquired some big scalps. So have Leicester City, Crystal Palace and others. There is a refreshing look to the table with Watford and Stoke City also in the top 10.
Bilic has a theory. “This season is kind of logical. I will try to explain,” he says. “Clubs like Leicester, Palace, West Brom, Stoke, West Ham, Watford, all of them. Every single club is in a situation to buy good players. Good enough players. And those clubs that already have (good players), the gap was like this [hands apart]. Because in Chelsea you had Costa, Fabregas, that one, that one, Hazard. But Crystal Palace didn't have Cabaye. Now with this (television) money.
The Hammers have a good record against the big clubs this season
“And next year is going to be even more the possibility that these clubs can buy these players to close the gap. And these clubs (the traditional big ones) can't buy more of these. You can't buy Messis, there are not plenty of them. They already have 15 good ones, they can't buy 30, there is no space. What, they have to get rid of these to replace them with the new ones?
“Clubs likes us, you have some positions that were not so good, they were ok let's say but the gap was big. Now with this (TV money) the gap is closer, that is the conclusion. Of course they are still better - Arsenal, Man City - but for me the chance in one competitive game between two teams, the chance for the less quality one on the paper, doesn't depend on how good the favourite is, it depends on more on how good the lesser one is.
“We are good enough that with a little bit of luck, a little bit of your mistake or bad day, we have a chance. And that is exactly what is happening this year in England.
“We can lose against any team, like we can beat any team. But there are not many, I would say I wish I could have them (instead of my players). So it is competitive. This league it is unbelievable.”
There is ambition at West Ham; ambition to be an established “top six” club, which will be helped by the stadium move. It is ambition that Bilic shares, encourages and embraces. “What we have is a great plan but we need to do it,” he says. “It’s easy to say ‘we are a top six club’. But we are not a top six club. Not at this moment in time. I will give my everything to try and achieve that but basically you can’t become a top six club unless you have done it for three, four, five years.
“I’m not saying it will take 20 years to do it but first of all we have to do it. First of all, we have to believe in it and we do believe in it not only off the pitch but on the pitch.
“West Ham is a good club, good enough to attract the players, not only with the money but the whole story about it. So we have a good chance.”
With the interview done, there is just one final question: does he own a dog? “Two dogs,” Bilic says, flashing that smile.
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