West Ham boss Slaven Bilic has been talking on how a phone call two years ago made possible Javier Hernandez's transfer to West Ham this week.

Hernandez completed a £16m move from Bayer Leverkusen, the German club he joined from Manchester United in the summer of 2015 despite interest from the Hammers.

"When he decided to go to Leverkusen he called me," said Bilic.

"He was very polite. He told me 'coach, sorry but I opted for Leverkusen'. It was a really nice gesture from him.

"Now, after two years, when we found out he might leave Leverkusen I called him again and of course we didn't have to start from zero.

"We were laughing and he said 'we spoke two years ago' and all that, so it probably helped that he knew that we wanted him."