All eyes on West Ham as the Slaven Bilic era kicks off with Europa League opener

West Ham United begin their new season on Thursday in the early stages of the Europa League, and there is a great deal of intrigue surrounding the start of the new era under Slaven Bilic, wirtes Richard Jolly.

West Ham will play their first game under Slaven Bilic in the Europa League, although the team has been prepared by Terry Westley. Oli Scarff / AFP

Put it down to the excitement about a new era. West Ham United announced this week that Thursday’s game against Lusitanos is sold out. The runners-up in the Andorran league will draw a capacity crowd to Upton Park.

Yet the bumper gate is neither about them, nor a first glimpse of European football for nine years, as much as the beginning of life under Slaven Bilic. Like his predecessor, Sam Allardyce, West Ham’s new manager is a former centre-back, but the similarities end there. The cosmopolitan, charismatic Croatian represents an antidote to the unpopular Englishman, even if it is undiplomatic to point out that Allardyce’s CV is actually rather meatier than Bilic’s.

It may be tactless, too, to mention the reality that much of the preparation has been done not by Bilic but by Terry Westley, a 55-year-old Englishman who has had unsuccessful spells in charge of Luton Town and Derby County and is now responsible for West Ham’s academy.

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Westley and the squad for Thursday’s game returned from a training camp in Cork on Monday. Bilic remained with the other players in Ireland for longer. “He will come back for the game on Thursday,” Westley told West Ham’s website. “He’s the manager. He will be with the team and in the dressing room and a big part of what we’re trying to do.”

But, as Westley conceded, he had to plan for this match before Bilic’s appointment on June 9. This is the shortest of summers for West Ham. They are the first of the Premier League clubs to begin their 2015/16 campaign. Their participation in the Europa League’s first round is their prize — which some would deem a punishment — for winning England’s Fair Play League. Given its complex workings, it seems typical that West Ham did not actually top that particular table: Liverpool did, but as they had already qualified for Europe, the place went their way.

It may be somehow symbolic — Bilic did not top West Ham’s shortlist. They turned to him after missing out on Rafael Benitez, Carlo Ancelotti, David Moyes, Marcelo Bielsa and Unai Emery. Allardyce’s departure was announced, with more haste than taste, within minutes of the end of the final game of last season, a 2-0 defeat at Newcastle United. While it was no surprise, it took time to settle on a successor. Bilic, a qualified lawyer and a keen guitar player, has the outsized personality to make for a compelling choice, but successive third-place finishes in Turkey with Besiktas mean the jury is out as to precisely how good a manager he is.

The names considered illustrate West Ham’s ambition. After safety-first principles underpinned the Allardyce era, a more progressive style of play is envisaged under Bilic. Yet this is not an occasion to showcase either principles or personnel.

Understandably, much of West Ham’s summer business has not been completed. New striker Dimitri Payet, the £10.7 million (Dh61.5m) arrival from Marseille, is not eligible. Of the players Bilic inherited, Andy Carroll is injured and Enner Valencia is absent because of the Copa America. Last season’s loanees Carl Jenkinson and Alex Song are no longer there.

So Bilic will field a mixture of senior professionals and youngsters. Yet the likelihood is that West Ham’s team will look very different when they begin their domestic campaign against Arsenal in five weeks’ time.

And it should scarcely matter which side Bilic fields on Thursday. Lusitanos have never won a game, let alone a tie, in Europe. So while this should be a soft landing for Bilic and a chance to welcome a popular former player back to Upton Park, judgments on his reign have to be postponed.

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