Bilic hails team's character

West Ham manager Slaven Bilic has hailed his team's character for the way in which they bounced back from the humiliating defeat to Manchester City.

The Hammers travelled to St Mary's on Saturday looking to put the 4-0 loss to City behind them, but things started badly for Bilic's men as they fell behind to a Manolo Gabbiadini goal after just 12 minutes.

The visitors managed to turn things around with goals from Andy Carroll, Pedro Obiang and Mark Noble to claim a valuable three points and Bilic believes they can build on the win in the coming weeks.

“Our response was brilliant. Of course the equaliser helped, coming so quickly from open play because it showed we could hurt them," Bilic told the club's official website.

“We have to be very concentrated and continue to play like this – and even better – but we are in a good position, not only with the points, but more with the way we are playing and the way we are training. That gives me hope and joy.”

He went on: “The way we’ve bounced back from the heavy defeats we’ve had shows the character of the team. Make no mistake, the defeat against Manchester City, especially at home, hurt. It hurt us big time – we made mistakes for their first and third goals but you have to give credit to Manchester City because they had a good day.

"I told the guys, don’t let that affect our confidence because before that we won five out of seven.

"That’s why the win against Southampton was more than three points, because of the way we did it. It was fantastic."

More games than ever before! eir Sport will show 23 live games from the Allianz Leagues, including five triple headers. The eir Sport pack is free to eir residential broadband customers.