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Slaven Bilic defends his short spell in Saudi Arabia

Slaven Bilic has defended his short spell in Saudia Arabia in between managing West Ham and the Baggies.

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Slaven Bilic.

Albion's new boss lasted just five months at Al-Ittihad in the Saudi Professional League, and was sacked after winning three of his 15 league matches.

But Bilic, who won manager of the month shortly before his exit, says he turned the club's fortunes around and was the victim of a change in structure above him.

"Saudi was a different challenge," said Bilic. "I wanted to go there, I liked that culture, I wanted to stay there, it’s a good place to live, people are very friendly, totally opposite to what people think, to what I thought.

"I wanted to stay there three years, I had big plans. Football is very important there, gates can be 50 or 60,000. I was at a big club.

"It’s very important for the town and the fans and everything, like in Turkey.

"The problem is they keep changing the board, and the board change the managers.

"The club improved, that’s why I wasn’t happy. I was double sad when I got sacked, because we had already done the hard job.

"It was in a really bad position when we took over in September.

"In January when it got better and better and we came out of the turbulence, I was voted manager of the month. A month later I was sacked."

Al-Ittihad, based in Jeddah, is one of the biggest clubs in Saudi Arabia, having won eight league titles and three Asian championships.

Their stadium's capacity is 62,241 and last season the average gate was 33,193.

After taking over at the end of September, Bilic didn't win any of his first eight games in charge.

But he won six and drew three of his next 12 games before he was sacked, including three victories in the King Cup.

The two assistants Bilic has brought to Albion, Dean Računica, 49, and Danilo Butorović, 34, were both part of his backroom staff in Saudi.

"Dean was my old teammate from Croatia, he helped me in the European Championships in 2008 and 2012," said Bilic.

"Danilo is younger, he was with me in Saudi, he was my scout at West Ham.

"He’s maybe the best student of his generation, with his laptop and everything else.

"You need that today, but he’s also a coach. They're good people but people with energy."