Slaven Bilic: It's impossible for West Ham to compete on quality with Manchester City and we weren't physical

Debut: Robert Snodgrass could not turn the game for West Ham
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Slaven Bilic3 February 2017

Let me say first that Manchester City were exceptional against us on Wednesday. Well done to them but we helped them. We let them play, we gave them time and made elementary mistakes for which, when you are playing against top players, you will be punished.

I expected more from us, not based on hope but on recent performances and results plus the quality I know we have in the squad.

How will Manchester City fare this season? Do they have a chance of the Premier League title? I was asked these questions after our 4-0 defeat. To be honest, I don’t care.

What I’ve been thinking solely about since Wednesday night’s disappointment, is why it has happened to us three times already this season?

Some have said the pitch is too big for us, others that we are still acclimatising to our new home. Well, there are regulations which govern the size of the pitch and I am fed up with answering questions about the stadium. No one mentioned either factor when we beat Crystal Palace recently. I am not one for excuses.

Basically, you cannot make the mistakes like we did which led to their first and third goals. Sometimes, if you are playing against teams with less quality, you can get away with it but not against a team as good as City. They don’t miss those opportunities.

It’s very frustrating, especially following a period when we have been improving and moving up the Premier League table. It’s a blow, particularly when it happens at home as it has three times already this season. We weren’t aggressive enough, we gave them time and space, in fact the opposite of everything we talked about before the match.

When you play them, you have to be complete to have a chance. You have to have numbers, yes, but you also have to be physical. We weren’t and the question now is, are we a physical team? Against City, we have to admit that we weren’t, so can we do it? I am sure sometimes that we can but, to be fair, we are not a proper physical team and if you compete purely on quality against such a team, then it is impossible.

In Pictures | West Ham vs Manchester City | 01/02/2017

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Of course, I am very disappointed. I didn’t treat this as a bonus game, I honestly expected we could get something from it but now we move on. We’re not going to let this ruin everything good that we have produced recently.

On the other two occasions when we’ve been beaten heavily at home this season, we have showed good character in the next match.

After losing 5-0 to Arsenal we drew 2-2 at Liverpool and then, after again conceding five goals to City in the FA Cup, we beat Crystal Palace 3-0.

We can’t let this damage our confidence and I will be expecting a similar response when we play at Southampton tomorrow — and then at home to West Brom the following weekend.

Ideally, one more day before the Southampton game would have helped — they played at Swansea on Tuesday — but we can’t change that and again, let’s not use that as an excuse.

Of course, there is bound to be criticism after such a defeat, just as there is praise after a good performance but I know these players will react well, including our new signings, Jose Fonte and Robert Snodgrass. We wouldn’t have signed them if we didn’t believe they will make us much better.

For Southampton, we expect to have Cheikhou Kouyate back in the squad. He’s back from playing for Senegal in the African Cup of Nations, he trained with us yesterday and should be ready.

Cheikhou is someone who definitely has that kind of physicality which we lacked against Manchester City. Every time he doesn’t play you miss his physical presence, as was the case in those two previous home defeats, by Arsenal and then Manchester City in the FA Cup.

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