 |
| Bilic took over at West Ham in June 2015 |
FROM the very early days following his arrival at Upton Park in January 1996, Tony Cottee knew his new team-mate Slaven Bilic had what it takes to one day be a successful manager in England.
It was the way he was sat with the rest of the players at the back of the West Ham bus, enjoying a drink and smoking a crafty fag. While other foreign imports brought their scientific principles and clean living to educate the Premier League, Bilic immersed himself in the culture of a game and a club that was very alien to his own.
What impressed Cottee, though, then a senior figure in his second spell at his boyhood club, was the way he was so quickly able to adapt in order to win the friendship and loyalty of his peers.
"I got on very well with Slav very quickly," he recalled. "He was very well-educated, his English was excellent and what I liked about him was that he was one of the lads.
"Going back to the mid-1990s there was still a bit of a drinking culture at the club. There were a few 'good lads', if you know what I mean. We all enjoyed ourselves and he was part of that.
"Harry Redknapp was the manager and he started bringing in a lot of foreign players, not all of whom settled in.
"One that did was Slaven - he liked a drink and would have a smoke with the rest of us on the back of the bus. I'm not saying what was going on was right, but he embraced everything.
"Then above all else he was a fantastic player. And with Slav, you could see the potential of a future manager. Everything he brings to the table now, you could see was there as a player."
 |
| Bilic played 49 games for West Ham in the late nineties |
That includes his intrinsic understanding of the famous 'West Ham Way'. The term is used often as a stick to poke fun out of the club's fans, a fact that riles Cottee.
"I get annoyed when people ridicule the West Ham Way but it is very, very simple," he said. "At the start of each season, West Ham are not going to win the Premier League, they are not going to get into the Champions League. If they have an outstanding season, they may well qualifying for the Europa League. They may or may not win a cup - they have not won anything since 1980.
"So the simple principle of the West Ham way is to play entertaining football for the fans, who are very much working-class people who work their socks off during the week and then on a Saturday, want to be entertained.
"They accept they might not win the game, but they want to be able to go home after the game and say, 'Did you see what Dimitri Payet did?'"
Sadly the French playmaker will be absent from Sunday's London derby at Tottenham, out for three months despite avoiding surgery on his injured ankle. His arrival has inspired the free-scoring football Sam Allardyce could never achieve with 23 goals in 12 games, setting them on course for a final tally of 75 for the season.
That would be the club's highest tally for 49 years, eclipsing the 74 scored by Cottee, Frank McAvennie et al during the 1985-86 season.
"They will be doing well to get that many," Cottee said defensively. "And even if they do, there are quite a few records from that season that will survive: two players, Frank and I, getting 20 goals in a season...18 games unbeaten...
"We are very proud of our achievements in 1986 - although we should have won the league. But as a West Ham fan I want the club to beat them.
"It will be a big ask with Payet injured. It changes the whole dynamic of the team. Slaven has got to come up with tactics to cover for his loss."
Post a Comment Blogger Facebook Disqus