Slaven Bilic: Dmitri Payet is fantastic, but I knew he would be

“We are very confident, but to be fair they are playing the best football in the country and they have no weaknesses”, Bilic said on Sky Sports.

However it wasn’t to be as Payet’s goals early in each half sealed the win for the Hammers to take them as high as fifth, while Newcastle drop to the foot of the table on goal difference behind North-East rivals Sunderland.

“We asked the referee”, McClaren said in his post-match press conference.

The former Nantes, Saint-Etienne and Lille player will now be hoping to continue to excel this season and give Deschamps no option but to include him in his plans for France’s home Euro 2016 tournament next year. The Magpies probably need this result more, but with West Ham’s awful start at home, they’ll be looking for all three points here.

West Ham boss Slaven Bilic praised the impact of Payet, who has scored three times since a £10.7m move from Marseille in the summer.

“West ham’s second goal has Victor moses written all over it. That’s an assist in my books”.

In the ninth minute, Mark Noble won the ball in Newcastle’s box, and instead of shooting, cut it back and picked out a flawless pass to Dimitri Payet whose one-time finish at the top of the box was sublime into the top right corner.

Newcastle weren’t helped by the east London traffic, having got to the stadium less than an hour before kick off.

“We can make excuses and say the preparation wasn’t ideal, but it’s no excuse”.

The Magpies have collected just two points from their first four matches, but both defeats arrived when McClaren’s side had a man sent off.

Moses weaved his way through the defence and though his shot hit the bar, the rebound found Payet, who fired home from close range. I want to concentrate and give everything and all the players will prepare well to win the game.

Bilic said: “The victory is was small proof that we are in a good way and that we’ve really done well in the transfer window. In the second half I was proud, because we were solid, good at keeping the ball and great at counter attacks”.

Tough to call this one, while West Ham definitely on their last performance deserve to be favourites I think this is going to be a tight game.