Slaven Bilic admits he made mistakes against Tottenham

West Ham’s late 3-2 loss at White Hart Lane against Tottenham really was a bitter pill to swallow for many, and especially Slaven Bilic.

In his weekly column in the London Evening Standard, the Hammers manager has admitted that it was one of the most painful defeats his suffered during his managerial tenure.

“The defeat at Tottenham was hard to take. In five years’ time, the memory will still be painful for me. We knew how much this game meant to the fans, as it did for us at the club, and we came so close but in the end we lost.”

Bilic also concedes that he understands there’s pressure on him to deliver points and results in the immediate future to help West Ham climb out of the relegation dogfight.

He and his coaching staff decided in the Spurs game to bring off Dimitri Payet and bring on Havard Nordtveit to slot in at centre-back while Cheikhou Kouyate pushes forward into midfield in a bid to see out the game.

Conversely, West Ham lost their shape and Spurs got back in the game with an 89th minute Harry Kane equaliser and less than a minute later Nordtveit brought down Heung-Min Son for a penalty which Kane coolly slotted away.

Bilic has admitted that, in hindsight, changing a settled side that were dealing with Spurs well at the time was a mistake and something he should not have done.

“I also came in for criticism for the substitutions at Spurs and, straight after the match and in view of what happened, I knew it would have been better had I not changed certain things.

“For me, though, it was an absolutely logical thing to do at the time. For many, though, it was the last one – Havard Nordtveit for Dimitri Payet – which ultimately changed the game.

“They were putting us under more and more pressure and with just over five minutes left I wasn’t thinking any more about scoring another goal but rather that we just needed to hold on.

“So that is why I made the substitution, I felt we needed an extra body in a midfield holding position with Pedro Obiang but it didn’t work out well.”

Next up for West Ham is a trip to Old Trafford on Sunday to take on Manchester United who beat Feyenoord 4-0 in the Europa League on Thursday evening.