Ex manager Slaven Bilic makes West Brom point as he drops summer hint

Slaven Bilic has indicated that his next job in football management could be back in England as he awaits his next challenge. The former West Brom manager left Beijing Guoan in January after just a year in the Chinese Super League and he is on the look-out for his next stint in the game.

Bilic took over at Albion in the summer of 2019 and he guided the club back to the Premier League from the Championship in a year that was impacted by the global Covid outbreak, but he was relieved of his duties before Christmas 2020 with Albion having managed just one victory in the first half of the season.

Since, Bilic has been out in the Chinese capital. While he signed a two-year contract with Guoan - where he managed free-scoring ex-Baggie Zhang Yuning - Bilic remained for just a single season after not being able to move his family over to join him because of Covid restrictions.

Formerly of West Ham - as a player and a manager - and also Besiktas, where another former boss in Valerien Ismael has just taken over the reins, Bilic has spoken fondly of his spells in both England and Turkey and envisages either of those countries to be the destination of his next managerial gig.

He regrets the way he left Albion, where he had disagreements with then sporting director Luke Dowling, having had the sense that he was just beginning to reverse Albion’s form prior to his sacking. Nevertheless, he feels a lot of love in England, and that is reciprocated.

“It was tough being away from my family, but I’m not a little kid - I knew what I signed up for,” Bilic said, in an interview with the Athletic, when asked about his time in China. “It’s not like I’m going to be in my pram and start crying like a baby. My family were supposed to come and live