Transfer Centre

Slaven Bilic: West Ham United after "game-changers" ahead of next season

By Daniel Lewis, Senior Reporter | 25 May 2017

West Ham United boss Slaven Bilic confesses that he needs to add "quality players" to his squad if they are to challenge in the top half of the division next season.

Slaven Bilic has revealed that he knows exactly which players to target this summer in order to add some much-needed "quality" to West Ham United's squad.

The Hammers ended a difficult second season under the Croat in 11th place, 17 points adrift of their tally from the previous Premier League campaign.

Bilic has already targeted a potential top-six finish next season, but to do so he is aware that a higher calibre of player is required to take West Ham to the next level, which may mean spending big in the coming weeks and months.

"We need quality players. Of course you always need quality players, but sometimes you are buying players for the future, sometimes you are buying players for the squad to be back-ups and all that, but we are good in that department," he told West Ham TV.

"Okay, we can talk about, if some of the players go, we can refresh the team with new players, but mainly we need the players who are going to improve the quality and be the game-changers. There are no guarantees in football, but we need starting XI players in certain positions. We want it all, but those players are very hard to get and they cost a bit.

"They are pretty much the privilege of the big, big, big guns. We have to close our eyes on some things. We can't expect them to tick all the boxes with a mark 10. We are not just starting now, we have been talking for the whole season, monitoring and now it is about time to do it, not necessarily in a couple of weeks but until the finish, until the end of the transfer window.

"We know what positions we want to improve the team. We have a list of the players but it's not very easy to get them, you know. It looks very positive so far."

West Ham are understood to be close to finalising a deal for former Manchester City full-back Pablo Zabaleta, while Kelechi Iheanacho was recently linked with a £20m switch from the Etihad Stadium.