West Ham co-owner David Gold is confident that the Hammers will be able to fill the Olympic Stadium when they move there in a year’s time.
The club have one season left at their current home of Upton Park before they up sticks and move to their new stadium which will have a capacity of 55,000.
Gold says a combination of lower ticket prices and improved transport links will aid their efforts to fill the new stadium.
He told the BBC: “Upton Park has two underground lines. At the Olympic Stadium, there are five train stations within a 10-minute walk of the ground and 13 lines that come into Stratford.
“There are towns all over Kent, Essex and further afield where the journey into Stratford will be a different experience.”
The Hammers have a vital need to still be playing Premier League football when they move and that was behind the decision not to offer former boss Sam Allardyce a new deal at the club and instead turn to former defender Slaven Bilic.
Bilic is expected to build a squad that will compete on all fronts and comfortably finish in the top half of the Premier League.
The former Besiktas boss admits he is excited by the challenge.
He said “I’ve watched them more closely and there are a lot of things we can improve, many things were really good and, with the addition of a few players, I am realistically very optimistic.”
Plenty of players continue to be linked with the Hammers, with £15million-rated QPR forward Charlie Austin among them, although Bilic would face stiff competition from Newcastle, Sunderland, Aston Villa and others for his services.
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