West Ham United coach Slaven Bilic has admitted that he is looking over his shoulder as Southampton and Liverpool close the gap to the Hammers.
The East London side—playing in their penultimate match at Upton Park—endured a bruising Saturday as they were taken to pieces by Swansea City.
The Swans opened the scoring through Wayne Routledge in the 25th minute, and tore into a 3-0 lead following strikes from Andre Ayew and Ki Sung-yeung.
While the Hammers pulled one back in the 68th minute when Stephen Kingsley scored an own goal, Bafe Gomis confirmed the win for the visitors in stoppage time.
The loss is a significant dent to West Ham’s hopes of achieving an unlikely Champions League berth this season, but coach Bilic has other concerns.
Speaking to journalists after the match, as reported by The Guardian, the Croatian coach has admitted that he’s as much worried about Liverpool and Southampton closing in on the Hammers, and appears less focused on taking the East London side into the UCL.
“What I’ve kept saying for the last three or four weeks is that, unfortunately, the gap between us and the top four is bigger than the gap between us and Southampton and Liverpool, and that’s the gap that I’m concentrated on,” the manager began.
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“I could not say we did not want it [the Champions League] but I wanted to approach it game by game and the good thing is we have an opportunity on Tuesday in maybe the most special game ever at Upton Park to make up for this.”