by Nia Griffiths

The new West Ham manager, Slaven Bilic, is aiming to be fitter than Arsenal for our opening game of the season.

When he was manager of Besiktas last season, the Croatian says that it was obvious Arsenal were physically a lot less fit than the Turkish team and it showed. When we face the Hammers on the opening match of the season, the newly appointed coach believes this is how he can collect all three points: by making sure his team is at peak fitness and vouch for the fact that we may not be.

Speaking after getting the job as the coach of the East London team on how they could beat us, Bilic said, “The best examples are from your own history, not from the books, the experience you have. I only have to look at last year when we played with Besiktas, we played Arsenal in the Champions League play-off.”

He added, “We were fitter than them. We had already played Feyenoord in the previous round and we were fitter. Arsenal had only played the Community Shield and Crystal Palace and we were already in the season.

“It gives you a definite advantage in the beginning of the season. What about November, December or Christmas time, which is already so tough here. We’re going to try to be aware of all the situations.”

It’s a good tactic but I’m not sure our sluggishness against Besiktas was necessarily down to lack of fitness. We were just finding our feet then and certainly weren’t the team we are now. I don’t think being fitter than us will do much good when they have Alexis Sanchez running at their defense.