Robert Snodgrass has spent his first two weeks at Aston Villa criticising Slaven Bilic after his loan move from West Ham United.
The Scotland midfielder signed for the Hammers from Hull City for £10million back in January.
His signing came in the wake of the departure of talismanic playmaker Dimitri Payet and turned out to be one of the worst deals in West Ham’s recent history.
Snodgrass failed to impress in any of his 16 appearances and failed to net a single goal, despite scoring seven and laying on a number of assists during the first half of the season with Hull.
Since sealing a season-long loan move to Villa, Snodgrass has been outspoken on his time in East London and Bilic in particular.
Snodgrass is substituted after a nightmare performance for West Ham on returning to his old club Hull
“I was coming on against (Manchester) City and he said ‘Where do you want to play, on the left or right?’,” Snodgrass told the Daily Record when he joined up with the Scotland squad this week.
“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. 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 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.”
The midfielder’s comments have come at a time when Bilic finds himself under intense pressure having lost his first three games of the new Premier League season to prop up the table.
And many supporters have taken umbrage to Snodgrass’ claims that his poor form was down to Bilic.
A West Ham supporters group has now taken to Twitter to disprove the claim, with some eagle-eyed statistics which are somewhat damning for the former Leeds United man’s case.
“Snodgrass played on the left half as many times as his “preferred” central attacking midfield and right-sided position, why is he moaning,” WHUFC News posted along with a spreadsheet of all where he played in each of his matches.
Perhaps the fact Snodgrass has had to drop down to the Championship, albeit to a big club in Villa, is an indication of how Premier League managers view his talents.
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