West Ham boss Slaven Bilic praises Guardiola, remains confident ahead of Man City visit

Slaven Bilic has a lot of respect for the new Manchester City manager, but he's still confident in his West Ham side.

The Hammers manager spoke to the press ahead of West Ham United's visit to the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, and he was full of praise for Pep Guardiola, who is still unbeaten after four official games in charge of the Citizens. Even though Bilic is impressed by Pep's early success, he is still confident they can pull off the same upset from last season, when West Ham beat the Sky Blues in Manchester.

Here's a rundown of Bilic's quotes:

“It wasn’t very likely last year because they had started great and had 15 points from five games without conceding a goal, but we played a really good game. We scored twice in the first half.

“In the second half they put us under pressure and were really dominating and creating a few chances, but they missed them and we were good in defending the box. Then we made that huge win.

“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t do it this season. We know it’s a big challenge, not only regarding our injury situation, but we are hoping and our whole plan is to have a good game and to get something out of it.

“Pep has new tactics which are a little bit different than last year’s and they’re not very common tactics, with the full-backs playing with the ball in areas that are not normal. We can live with that because it’s far away from the goal, but we have to stop them being free with time and space in front and in our box.

“It’s going to be hard, of course. They’ve shown already they are top-class players and they’ve gelled. They were the most impressive in their Champions League game against Steaua in Bucharest, but what gives us hope is that Sunderland made it hard for them and so did Stoke – the result was 4-1 but it was not that easy and the game was very even for a long period.

“Man City were Man City last year and we can do it again.”

Source: WHUFC.com