Express & Star

Slaven Bilic wants West Brom to win with humility

Albion look to go back to the top of the Championship tonight with boss Slaven Bilic telling his payers: “Be strong but humble.”

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Slaven Bilic head coach / manager of West Bromwich Albion. (AMA)

The Baggies were knocked off the top spot on Saturday as Leeds handed out a hammering to Middlesbrough, but can gain regain the summit with a win against Preston North End tonight.

However, they must become the first to breach the North End fortress, with no other Championship side coming away from Deepdale with victory so far this season.

And Bilic is asking his side to be humble in their approach to their quest for promotion.

“Nowadays it’s not popular to be humble, now everyone asks of you to be macho and to show the world a bit of arrogance,” said the Croatian.

“For me, to be humble is (seen) like a flaw almost. But humble is above everything.

“You can be strong and humble. You can be unbelievably confident and humble and that’s what we are trying to get from the players.

“At the moment they are like that, they are unbelievable.

“Of course they are enjoying the moment but they are working hard and they are humble.

“They are respecting the situation that we are in at the moment, knowing that we have to continue like that.

“Or even to raise our efforts to have any chance of winning games.”

Bilic recognised the difficulty of travelling to Preston, adding: “They have maybe the best home record. Seven wins and two draws, I think that’s the best. We don’t have it at home, and we are good at home,” said Slaven.

“So they are a good team. They score a lot of goals. Their last two results have not been good but especially at home they are very, very good.

“Again, it’s a difficult one. But we have to hope, we have to believe, we have to suffer a little bit together on the pitch. And we have to stay humble, stay positive, and at the same time be very front-footed.

“We have to do everything we can not to lose this momentum that we have at the moment because we’ve worked really hard for it, and now we want to keep it forever or as long as possible.”