West Ham manager Slaven Bilic has admitted that his club are still looking to replace controversial former star Dimitri Payet.
Payet was a crucial part of the Hammers 2015-16 season and helped the club finish in seventh position. He left the club under controversial circumstances in January after refusing to play in order to force through a sale to French Ligue 1 club Marseille.
“Dimitri Payet it was like hitting the jackpot”, Bilic told the Daily Mirror. “When it was done it was done in one week, like under cover or under the radar.
“We did it before the big teams even started to think about it. Those kind of things are the best. But unfortunately now in football you can’t count doing that every week. But it happened.
“Those players lift your whole team and your season. Then the clubs who do those kind of deals they usually finish high. But it’s very difficult do do now.
“I spoke this season after games with the managers and it was a surprise to me but most of the players that are on our list, they are on the list of a minimum of 10 other clubs. We are all aiming for, basically, the same names.”
The Hammers will need to recruit new attackers during the summer. Andre Ayew, Andy Carroll and Diafra Sakho have all been hampered by injuries this season while Robert Snodgrass has not managed to replicate the form he delivered for Hull during the first half of the season after joining in January.
