Slaven Bilic has warned his West Brom players that even Premier League champions Liverpool would be “hammered” if they tried to pick and choose the games in which they turned it on.
The promoted Baggies resume after the international break with a home match against Burnley on Monday evening in which both sides will be seeking a first league win of the campaign.
Bilic’s men suffered the misfortune of being handed an early-season fixture list which pitched them into battle with 2016 champions Leicester, in-form Everton and big-spending Chelsea, but it was the 2-0 defeat by Southampton which followed which caused him most pain.
Bilic said: “We knew that especially our first three games were very difficult on paper – but then we played the worst in our fourth game.
“But every game is difficult, we have to accept that as fans, as a team. It’s not giving up, not at all, it’s about finding a new motivation.
“We have to accept that every game, whoever we play against, we enter that game as a big, massive challenge and test for us, thinking positive, of course thinking brave, not being scared of them, no, but knowing that we will have to out-run them, out-focus them, that we have to be better than them in those things that you can influence.
“Definitely that’s motivation, that’s determination, that’s togetherness, that’s craziness in a positive way.
“Every game is like that, every game. We can’t pick games where we are going to be on fire and those games we are not going to be on fire.
“What does that mean? We are not in that position – nobody is. Even when Liverpool go a little bit like that, they get hammered, and we are not Liverpool.
“We have to accept that and we have to do it.”
The Clarets will arrive at the Hawthorns still pointless after a 3-1 defeat at Newcastle last time out, but Bilic knows there will be no sense of panic from opposite number Sean Dyche and his players.
He said: “They have zero points, they are not in a good situation, but they have a know-how. They are not panicking with the situation – they are not happy, but they are not panicking.
“They have a know-how, they have a great manager who never gives up. He is a proper man.
“They may not have the points, but they will arrive as a confident team who know what they have to do.”
