Nobody gave West Ham United much chance of getting anything from their opening English Premier League fixture against Arsenal at the Emirates.

At the beginning of the match it looked like Arsenal would walk to a victory but the Hammers stunned the home crowd with a strong, professional performance and they managed to come away with a 2-0 victory.

A big part of that was down to new signing Dimitri Payet.

His performance against the Gunners reminded me a bit of West Ham legend Paolo Di Canio.

Not as much in style as presence.

It seems like Payet could become a create live-wire that the Italian forward was at Upton Park. A talismanic figure.

The French international was given a lot of freedom to do as he wished from Hammers new boss Slaven Bilic. He repaid the faith by find little pockets of space in dangerous attacking positions and was hard for Arsenal’s defence to pick up as he kept floating around.

The £10.7m man was also well assured when he had the ball, didn’t waste possession and was never scared to receive it either.

Payet really does seem to be given that role of creative genius from Bilic. The Frenchman stood over the majority of West Ham’s set-pieces and regularly hit his targets. That was best illustrated, when one of his free-kicks was headed in by Cheikhou Kouyaté. The ball-in tempted veteran keeper Petr Cech to go out for it but it’s accuracy made the Arsenal goalie look extremely silly as he badly mistimed his run out.

Dimitri also did well when he ran with the ball and was hard to push off it. Again he usually managed to hold onto it and always seemed to have a plan when he had it. That helped in the lead up to West Ham’s second goal.

To be fair Bilic’s full team did really well against their more illustrious London rivals. They played with a high tempo and with a strong defensive spine. Young sixteen year old midfielder Reece Oxford started the game and West Ham Utd’s youngest ever Premier League player didn’t look out of place! Goalkeeper Adrian also did well as he kept a morale boosting cleansheet.

Yet even though it was a fantastic team effort, I believe that Payet was the difference maker with his clever runs and efficient performance. He was often used as his clubs best outlet to relieve pressure whenever Arsenal started to try and turn the screw.

A lot of eyebrows were raised when Stewart Downing was sold on this summer. The attacking midfielder had a triumphant season last year and broke back into the England squad. But Payet is a twenty-eight year old French internationalist and made fans forget all about Downing today.

Bilic was full of praise when discussing his new signing from Olympique Marseille:

“He’s not only a great player, he’s a professional and is a good lad. He’s the kind of player I thought we really needed.

“He is going to make every player better than they actually are. He’s got everything.

Obviously we can’t really compare him with Di Canio. The Italian maverick enjoyed a fantastic West Ham career and scored a lot of vital goals. Payet has only played one game so far, yes it was a superb one but one never the less.

The forward now needs to prove that he can perform like that on a regular basis.

Last season at Marseille he produced seventeen assists and scored seven times. Back in 2012/13 for Lille the attacker scored twelve Ligue 1 goals and created thirteen.

If he can replicate those types of statistics in the Premier League and keep on performing like he did today for the Hammers, then he could prove to be a bargain and West Ham’s new gifted fans favourite!

Posted on August 9th, 2015 by scott
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