Slaven Bilic: 'Tough to compete with big teams in transfer market'

By Barney Corkhill, Editor | 15 August 2016

West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic admits that his side struggle to compete with the top clubs in the transfer market, having missed out on Michy Batshuayi to Chelsea.

West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic has admitted that it has been difficult to compete with the top clubs in the transfer market.

The Hammers spent the opening stages of the window looking to bring in a high-profile striker, including making a bid for Michy Batshuayi, who later joined Chelsea.

West Ham will take on Chelsea in their opening match of the new season, but Bilic insists that he is happy with having brought in Andre Ayew for a club-record fee instead.

"I don't want to talk stories now about things that didn't happen now," he told reporters when asked how close West Ham came to signing Batshuayi.

"I said it openly, we tried to get at the beginning one of the top strikers of the moment and they opted for a bigger club and also better money of course, but at the end we bought what we wanted to, I'm happy.

"I said a few weeks ago to the chairman and [chief scout] Tony Henry that if we want to go big game fishing there are two conditions for us to compete with the big clubs - if we go early or if we put more money in. Then we might have had a chance, on paper, with those great ones. But we didn't do that. Then it is almost impossible to get the player."

West Ham have brought in seven new signings this summer