West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic, believes that his side have "turned a corner" in their season, ahead of their EFL Cup quarter-final clash with Manchester United.

Turning a corner

It has been a poor start to the season for the Hammers, with the club currently wallowing in 16th position, just a point above the relegation zone. There was resurgence before the recent international break, but they were brought back to reality last weekend with the 3-2 defeat to bitter rivals Tottenham Hotspur.

They headed into Sunday's clash with Jose Mourinho's side low on confidence, but will have been significantly boosted by Sunday's performance at Old Trafford. Diafra Sakho opened the scoring after two minutes, before Zlatan Ibrahimovic's equaliser, and Bilic stated that he believes that the club are turning a corner.

“I take a lot of encouragement from that and positives from the game," Bilic told whufc.com. "We had moments in the game where we played very well. We need to be brave and positive.”

“Every point counts," he stated. "I think we have turned a corner in terms of the team performances and individual performances."

“We are still not in the position that we want to be," the Croatian admitted. "But when you look at the performances since the Watford, West Brom and Middlesbrough games, we are playing good football now."

“Since the international break we have not gained a lot of points," Bilic added. "But the performances are the ones that are giving us the right to think that we are on a good path now.”

Will give us confidence

After knocking out Chelsea in the previous round of the EFL Cup, Bilic will be hoping that they can claim another scalp as they look for a win to help their confidence ahead of a few tough weeks in the league. Bilic's side will take on Arsenal on Saturday, before taking on Liverpool the week after, and Bilic believes that a win on Wednesday can be a big boost.

“It would give us a lot of confidence if we could win the game and we will be doing everything to do that," he said. “If we change a few players like United will."

"It doesn't mean we are going there just to play a game," Bilic concluded. “It is a quarter-final and to reach the semis is a big thing and we are just a couple of games from the final.”

West Ham United will take on Manchester United in the EFL Cup at Old Trafford on Wednesday, November 30 with kick-off at 8pm BST.


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Danial  Kennedy
Award-winning sports journalism graduate. Currently studying a PR Masters at the University of Sunderland. Writing for VAVEL since August 2014. Twitter - @ddkjournalism.