London Stadium feels ‘more like home’ to West Ham as Slaven Bilic celebrates his birthday with vital win

West Ham manager Slaven Bilic says that the London Stadium is feeling more and more like home and that they can’t wait to play there every time after gaining a first Premier League win of the season against Huddersfield Town.

The Hammers, who had played their first three Premier League games away from home this season and lost each of them, were back in Stratford for the first time this term and were comfortable 2-0 winners over an in-from Terriers side.

And after the game, Bilic said he was happy to be home: “We are pleased [to be back at home],

“We struggled at this stadium at the beginning of last season the Watford game, the Southampton game – even the game we drew – Stoke, Middlesbrough and all that.

“But then in 2017 it was only Man City a couple of times and Liverpool that we had a bad performance and even in those performances we started well.

“But then the games against Spurs, not only Spurs, against Palace against West Brom – we drew 2-2 we were unhappy but we were at home, it was like a proper performance.

“We lost the game against Leicester 3-2 but apart from the first seven minutes when we went two down I felt really at home and the players felt at home.”

The Croatian, who had been under mounting pressure going into the game after a poor start and the uproar surrounding their efforts to sign William Carvalho, admitted that while London Stadium will never be Upton Park, they have and are continuing to create good memories in Stratford.

“This is becoming, or it already became, our home that you can really, we can’t wait to play here again,” he added.

“We feel it is our home.

“It will never be Upton Park, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be our home and I really have a feeling that, and I see the players, we trained here yesterday and the day before yesterday, we like it more and more here.

“That can only come with good results and good individual performances, and good memories from the games – especially if those games are big ones and we’ve won recently here a few big ones, like against Swansea, against Spurs and tonight [against Huddersfield].”

The Hammers next game back on home turf comes against Bolton in the Carabao Cup, however, following that they will be confident of creating more memories in big games when they host rivals Tottenham, having beaten them 1-0 at the back end of last season.