West Ham United manager Manuel Pellegrini is confident his team will progress on the pitch this season.

The Hammers made a poor start to the previous campaign but recovered to finish 10th in the Premier League.

Pellegrini takes charge of his second season at the club with the Irons and believes can he take them to the next level.

The Chilean told the West Ham website: “Of course, this is my second season and I hope we are going to improve what we did last year.

“I think that last season we grew a very big step, especially the relationship between the fans, the stadium and the team, and I think that is absolutely linked with the way we play.

“I hope we will have the same support from the fans. We always have 60,000 people behind our team every time we play here at London Stadium.

“I hope that we can have a brilliant season and they can enjoy it.”

West Ham completed their pre-season with a 4-2 defeat on penalties to Athletic Bilbao at London Stadium following their 2-2 draw on Saturday.

An own goal from Sebastien Haller and an Inaki Williams finish put the Spanish visitors 2-0 up early on.

But the Hammers hit straight back with Manuel Lanzini and Jack Wilshere quickly levelling the game.

Missed penalties from Javier Hernandez and Grady Diangana settled the Betway Cup but it marked the end of a pre-season where West Ham scored 12 goals in six games.

Pellegrini, whose side also conceded 12 goals during their friendlies, said: “I am very happy with the amount of goals we are scoring, but a little bit worried about the amount of goals we are conceding.

“For me, the most important thing is the way we are getting forward and I am sure the fans will enjoy the way we play, but we must be more concentrated and work hard in defending because football is not just attacking.

“I hope in the next week we will become a more aggressive team when we don’t have the ball.”

West Ham face the toughest possible start to the season with champions Manchester City visiting the London Stadium in the early game (12.30pm kick-off) on Saturday.

Pellegrini said: “We finished the pre-season games and now we have one week more where we must see all the different details that we must improve before we play against Manchester City.

“I think that was a good pre-season with good rivals, all of them important teams, and I think we had good moments and bad moments, as is normal in this part of the season.”

West Ham’s two main signings this summer are striker Haller and Spaniard Pablo Fornals.

Haller joined in a club-record deal, worth up to £45million, from Eintracht Frankfurt after scoring 20 goals in 41 games last season.

He replaces Marko Arnautovic after the Austrian moved to Chinese Super League champions Shanghai SIPG.

Fornals joined West Ham for £24m from Villarreal with the 23-year-old signing a five-year deal.

The highly-rated attacking midfielder is expected to provide a creative outlet.