Slaven Bilic: West Ham tried to sign Christian Benteke before his Crystal Palace switch

Andy Sims15 October 2016

Slaven Bilic will be hoping not to be haunted by the two that got away when West Ham head to Crystal Palace.

Hammers boss Bilic reluctantly sold defender James Tomkins to the Eagles this summer having been unable to guarantee him enough playing time.

And Bilic also has to come up with a way to stop in-form striker Christian Benteke, who West Ham wanted to sign before he opted to join Palace from Liverpool.

"Benteke was one of the players on our list but he was also on the list of many clubs," said Bilic.

"He went to Palace and now it's irrelevant because he is their player and we have got our strikers.

"I didn't speak to him. We just wanted to know the situation and we couldn't get him basically, it was hard to get him.

"I can say how good he is as a striker and the impact he has made. In the first three games they were struggling but now they are improving with him.

"But we can't just be focused on him because there are many players there who can turn the game."

Benteke has hit the ground running at Palace with three goals, as well as his eight-second strike and hat-trick for Belgium against Gibraltar in midweek.

By contrast Simone Zaza, who Bilic signed on loan from Juventus after missing out on Benteke, has yet to find the net - or even come close - in his five appearances so far.

Five reasons why West Ham have struggled this season

1/6

So underwhelming has the Italy striker been that there are even suggestions West Ham may want to avoid him playing enough matches to trigger a clause to make his move permanent at a cost of £17million.

But Bilic insisted: "I only have to make a decision on Zaza over Saturday.

"The only thing I am thinking about, about the situation in his contract or around his contract, is whether he going to be the one I will put at centre-forward against Palace."

The decision to sell Tomkins, who can play at centre-half or right-back, also seems to have backfired on the Hammers whose injury-hit defence has leaked 17 goals in their opening seven games.

"I didn't want him to leave but last year he played many, many games for us in different positions and he was very good for our squad," admitted Bilic.

"But I couldn't guarantee he would play week in, week out and that is the reason he left. He didn't want to leave because he is West Ham born and bred. He wanted guarantees, basically, and I couldn't give him that.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in