Bilic said: “I hoped England would play 3-5-2 because it would give us more room to attack on the wings.
“Croatia played with that system when I played and I knew if we could switch the play quickly we would be two-on-one.
“We played that way and our main threat came on the wings. For me, our best period of the game came after the second goal.
“I expected England to come out and pressurise us but it was more a question of whether we would score a third.
“They could not push us back past our 18-yard line.”
Bilic added: “I was thinking before the game we would walk away with three important points.
“England had 15 minutes of control before half-time but it was to no effect. The whole point for controlling the ball is to score a goal.
“We decided to play long on Peter Crouch because we didn’t think he posed much of a danger.
“When Wayne Rooney has the ball anything can happen but we had four players hemming him in.”
