Slaven Bilic: 'I was right to name weakened team for Europa League'

Slaven Bilic has defended his team selection after West Ham United's Europa League exit at the hands of Astra Giurgiu.

The Hammers exited the competition early after a 4-3 aggregate defeat to the Romanian side, but will play against Arsenal in the Premier League on Sunday.

"We would need the result against Arsenal anyway, but we want a positive result to justify this result here," Bilic told reporters.

"I spoke to the people at the club about the Europa League and next season which is huge for us - so we considered that. But it's my decision. When you make your decision, you have to stand by your decision. It was an unusual situation for us, we will find out if we have made the right balance.

" We wanted to go through. I believed we could go through. The effort was there, and the quality was there until they scored. After we scored we played some good football - they were doing nothing."

The East London club have made eight new signings this season.