Slaven Bilic: West Ham playmaker Dimitri Payet as good as Arsenal's Mesut Ozil

WEST HAM have French playmaker Dimitri Payet available for selection - with manager Slaven Bilic rating him as highly as Arsenal's Mesut Ozil.

 

 

Payet has returned a month earlier than anticipated from an ankle injury and Bilic said: "He is No2 after Ozil in terms of creating chances or the amount of crosses and yet he has played fewer games.

"I rate Dimitri at that level with Ozil. Both are just brilliant players."

 

And the manager believes the arrival of Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool has been a significant boost for the Premier League.

"Klopp has been such a boost for the league," said Bilic. "All the big clubs wanted to take him. He is one of the best coaches in the world, what he did with Borussia Dortmund was amazing.

"He has a presence, you can feel him standing next to you. Does all his shouting on the touchline distract me? No, not at all."

 

Bilic believes West Ham must start thinking like a big club if they are to become one.

“Some people would give more chance to Manchester United or Liverpool than to Leicester – without any logical reasons about what is happening on the pitch because Leicester is much better than those two clubs at the moment.

“To become a big club, you need years of that, what Liverpool have; tradition, history, everything. Now, we will never say we have a chance to win the league. Whereas for Liverpool it would be normal for them to say, ‘yeah, we are nine points off’. It’s in the head. And it takes time to change that.”