Express & Star

Slaven Bilic urging West Brom star Matheus Pereira to continue providing 'top performances'

Slaven Bilic has challenged Matheus Pereira to maintain his impressive form following the Brazilian’s sensational display against Hull.

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Matheus Pereira of West Bromwich Albion and Matthew Pennington of Hull City. (AMA)

Pereira took his tally of assists for the season to 19 after laying on three of the four goals the Baggies scored in their 4-2 win over Grant McCann’s side.

Those assists included a wonderful pass to Kamil Grosicki - with the Poland international scoring just 60 seconds after Hull had levelled the game at 2-2.

Speaking after the game, Bilic was full of praise for his samba star but revealed there have been times this season when he has demanded more from Albion’s talisman.

And he says Albion need Pereira to continue at his best to ensure they win promotion to the Premier League.

“I’ve told him a few times during the season I expect him to be better,” Bilic said when asked about Pereira’s performance.

“Against Hull and against Sheffield Wednesday he was top. Top performances.

“Not only offensively but he fought, he was running, he was brilliant with his pressing, with his movement with his passing.

“He is Matheus, he is our player, he is one of those key players when we are getting into the final third of the pitch.

“And it’s great to have him like this. His ball to Grosikci was ‘wow.’ It was one of those balls.

“But if we want to go to the Premier League - and we want to go to the Premier League - then we need that from him. We need that from him.

“He has got that quality. It is great to have him on this level.”

Albion’s clash against Hull proved to be a thriller with both teams playing open, attacking football.

But while Bilic was pleased with his team going forward, he felt the Baggies looked a touch nervous at the back.

“It was a frantic, very open game,” the boss continued.

“We wanted to be open when we had the ball, but we didn’t want to be open when they had it.

“On the ball we were excellent. We made so many chances. We were coming there with the whole team.

“Every time it was thrilling, or something dangerous. The problem was that, on the other side of the game, they put us under pressure with very simple football.

“Long balls, second balls, quick attacks. In that sense, I can’t be happy with the whole team, because we dealt with that football (at Sheffield Wednesday) three days ago.

“We coped, so it wasn’t a matter of quality, or tiredness. We were just a little bit nervy, afraid that they were going to hurt us.”