West Ham United winger Robert Snodgrass has hit out at manager Slaven Bilic following his loan move to Aston Villa.
The 29-year-old only joined the Hammers in January, but he failed to score in 15 Premier League appearances for the club during the second half of last season despite netting seven times for Hull prior to his move.
The Scotland international will spend the 2017-18 season on loan with Villa, and he has now launched a scathing attack on the under-fire Bilic, claiming that he played him out of position during his time at the London Stadium.
"I was coming on against City and [Bilic] said 'Where do you want to play, on the left or right?' I thought 'You have just signed me and I have played on the right or behind the striker at Hull City all season'. That was my debut and alarm bells were ringing right away," Snodgrass told reporters.
"I found it very strange and I realised from the off that it wasn't going to happen. Every time I played I was on the left. I don't know why he did it. I joined as Dimitri Payet left and maybe it was a case of 'you can play there'. But I'd only filled in on the left on a couple of occasions. I hate that position but when you are Scottish you are brought up to play anywhere.
"It's fine to play for one or two games but you need to play in your right position, especially on the back of scoring nine goals for Hull. At that stage, nobody had scored more goals for Hull or West Ham. The manager was under a lot of pressure and I later said that out of respect I didn't want to go in and see him during that period.
"But when I eventually did speak to him I said I thought he would have known I wasn't a left-midfielder and that he must have watched me after signing me for that type of money. His answer was basically that when people are confident they can play anywhere."
Bilic's future has come under scrutiny already this season, with West Ham sitting bottom of the table having lost all three of their opening Premier League games.
Barney Corkhill
