Challenging for European spots last season, West Ham’s first-half of the 2016-17 season will be one Slaven Bilic and his players will want to forget as quickly as possible.
Forcing a 1-0 win at home against a Burnley side bereft of ideas when playing away from home, the Hammers have put four points between them and the relegation zone, which will allow them to sleep a little more soundly at night.
At least, Cheikhou Kouyaté will.
Battling against the drop for the first time in his career, something that never happened at Anderlecht, the player spoke to DH in Belgium about the problems that come with sitting in the bottom half of the Premier League table.
He said: “It’s not pleasant. You stress a lot more, both when you play and follow the results of other teams at the bottom of the table. I hope we can get out of this as soon as possible because, I’ll be honest, I’m not sleeping that well these days.”
The midfielder, who has been shoehorned in Slaven Bilic’s defence since the Croatian manager switched to three at the back, also admitted ‘preferring playing in midfield’, but accepted that the team’s needs were bigger than his.
With West Ham hoping to sign at least a striker and a centre-back during the January window, Kouyaté is hoping he’ll be able to evolve in the middle of the park for the season’s second half.
‘Hope’ is the key word.
