Slaven Bilic: Keeping all my West Ham players happy is a problem

With Marko Arnautovic available again following suspension and Manuel Lanzini getting closer to fitness, I am going to have more options soon.

For a manager, that is a positive problem but every Premier League club are in a similar position now.

The question of keeping everyone happy then is a difficult one but unless you are really overloaded, every player can feel that he is an important cog in the wheel.

Unless players are in your team, though, the reality is that very few of them are happy. Maybe, if there is a young player, he is content for a few weeks just to be in the squad — but they are talented footballers and they are hungry to play.

Managers have to be big enough to make decisions, such as substituting ‘Chicharito’ in the second half against Huddersfield.

I heard a few boos when I did that and I understood because he is a fans’ favourite and also a favourite of mine. The reason why I did it was this. We didn’t want to change the system but we were dropping energy so we needed a player to come on to give us a boost.

We had that quality on the bench with Andre Ayew and the pitch was beginning to look a bit big for Chicharito, who had done some long-distance travelling during the international break. Maybe he would have recovered as the game wore on but we wanted to change something and it was time.

What we have to do now is keep this level of concentration and determination. We proved it against Huddersfield — the art is to keep doing it, against West Brom tomorrow and beyond.