Slaven Bilic has insisted Dimitri Payet was wrong to claim that West Ham’s football was “boring” during his time at the club.
Payet, who returned to Marseille in a £25million January deal, offered a damning indictment of the standard of football in “the lower reaches of the Premier League” in an interview with L’Equipe last week.
The France international reserved particular scorn for West Ham’s display in a 1-0 home win against Hull earlier this season where the post had been handed the club’s man of the match award but Bilic insists that it is unfair to call his side defensive.
“I don’t want to go into arguing into players but all you have to see if you’re talking about tactics and the way we played is the statistics from last year and this year,” he said in his press conference ahead of the visit of Leicester City.
“Even our most recent game against Bournemouth [a 3-2 away defeat], it was not a lack of attacking that caused us to be in a situation where we lost the game.
“With the ball, last year and this year, we are creating chances. We are maybe playing too offensively, maybe that is the case.”
Bilic’s side enjoyed something of a renaissance when Payet was ostracised from the first-team and subsequently sold but results have been more disappointing over the past month.
West Ham are winless in their last four Premier League games but Bilic is confident that his future need not be up for debate, with the club expected to offer him a new contract at the end of the season.
“You know how it goes here,” he said. “After a couple of good results, everyone is talking about that. A couple of less good results, it is a different story.
“My situation hasn't changed and I can cope with that.”
