Former West Ham manager Slaven Bilic has hit back at David Sullivan and accused him of a “low” blow after criticizing him for the club’s transfer policy during his time at the Hammers.
Bilic was sacked in November and replaced by David Moyes after the Hammers were struggling in the League.
Earlier on during this month, Sullivan claimed that Bilic was responsible for the club signing Robert Snodgrass and Jose Fonte in January 2017 and claimed that he did not want the club to sign the duo.
The players Bilic brought to the Hammers during his reign at the club generated mixed emotions.
The likes of DimitriPayet and Manuel Lanzini proved to be sensations while Simone Zaza and Gokhan Tore were flops.
Bilic feels that Sullivan’s comments were unfair saying, “West Ham is my club. I am not afraid of confrontation but I don’t want it with people I got on with for two years. But again I have to say something. To say all the good players were him, and the bad signings were me is kind of low. And it’s simply not true.
“I don’t want to praise myself but if you ask about Lanzini, I knew about him since he was at River Plate a few years ago, I wanted to take him to Besiktas. At that time, he was too much money and went to Al Jazira.
“Let’s be honest, who knew about Lanzini before he came to England? Nobody knew and that includes the chairman. But I never treated the signings like that, like they are my players or your players. No, they were all our players, collective responsibility.
“There were three of us: the chairman, myself and Tony Henry. Agents would call any of us and we shared the information. I knew about Payet for a long time. The chairman told me he’d had a call about a player from Marseille. I said which one, and he said Payet. I said, ‘Yes, don’t think twice.
“I am not going to take credit for everything but I don’t want to take all the blame either. Fonte and Snodgrass came in January.
“We were losing Payet and Ogbonna was having an operation, and of course the budget was limited. So we got those two new players. To criticise them is unfair. They came to a club in a difficult situation and helped us finish 11th so they played their part.”
