Just seven months after joining West Ham from Hull for over £10m, Robert Snodgrass departed the club earlier this week on a season-long loan to Aston Villa.
Snodgrass made 15 appearances for the club last season, starting eight games as he appeared to be Slaven Bilic's replacement for Dimitri Payet.
Alarm bells sounded early for the Scot at the club during his debut against Man City. Coming off the bench in place of Pedro Obiang, Snodgrass was asked by his manager where he'd like to play.
Speaking to The Herald, Snodgrass said he found Bilic's question curious.
I realised from the off that it wasn’t going to happen. I was coming on against Manchester City and he [Bilic] said ‘where do you want to play, on the left or right?’ I thought ‘You’ve just signed me and I’ve played on the right or behind the striker at Hull City all season’.
I found it very strange. That was my debut. And every time I played I was on the left. Alarm bells were ringing right away. I don’t know why he did it. I came in just as Payet left and maybe it was a case of ‘you can play there’ but I’d only filled in on the left on a couple of times.
Snodgrass added that when he later spoke to Bilic about not playing in his preferred position, the Croatian said that 'when people are confident they can play anywhere'.
He probably thought he was onto a winner but I hate that position. When you’re Scottish you’re brought up to play anywhere and it’s fine to play for one or two games but you need to play in your right position, especially on the back of scoring nine goals for Hull City. At that stage nobody had scored more goals for Hull, or for West Ham.
