No player is bigger than the football club!

West Ham United should know that more than most as they’ve sold some extremely talented stars in the past but have always survived.

Today it has emerged that West Ham’s star of last season Dimitri Payet no longer wants to play for the club.

Hammers boss Slaven Bilic said as much in his most recent press conference:

“We have said we don’t want to sell our best players but Dimitri Payet does not want to play for us,”

Bilic would then add that he had no intention in selling Payet but the maverick forward was refusing to play for the club at this current period.

It’s a tough situation for Bilic and the Hammers board.

They have done everything possible to help the Frenchman settle in at the club. They’ve made him the team’s focal point and he gave them inspirational performances in return. Those performances helped him secure a place in the French Euro 2016 side, where his star status was enhanced.

Major clubs have since been linked with a move for Dimitri and he’s not shied away from commenting about those links.

West Ham quickly rewarded their maestro was a new £120k a week contract last winter but that hasn’t been enough to quell Payet’s desire to depart in this transfer window.

If you look at Payet’s history, you’ll notice that he only stayed at Lille and Marseille (his last two clubs) for two seasons apiece.

When he departs from a club he will come out with an excuse of wanting to play in a better league or play for a bigger team.

It seems to me that his next destination is going to be back at Olympique Marseille. He’ll no doubt state that he wants to return to France for personnel reasons.

Now let’s go back to the deal that took Payet to West Ham in the first place. Marseille released a statement that basically slated the player and his agent.

The first line in the statement said this:

“Olympique de Marseille says it has absolutely no intention of selling Dimitri Payet,”

It also pointed out that it felt that an agreement was in place to keep the playmaker in the south coast of France until his contract ran out which wasn’t until the summer of 2017. They then revealed that Dimitri and his advisors had started to negotiate a deal with West Ham and that they couldn’t match that deal.

In the end Marseille said that they reluctantly sold the player to the London side.

So what has changed at L’OM since that acrimonious departure?

Well they’ve been bought over and are now managed by former Lille boss Rudi Garcia.

Suddenly they’re a fancy new project that has a substantial cash backer and they are looking for a world star to kick-start this new exciting era!

Payet would fit that bill and I can only imagine that he’ll be paid handsomely to go back to the Stade Vélodrome.

Now he’s willing to go on strike to push through a move. Reports suggest that L’OM have already had a £20m rejected for the creative attacker.

For me, if I were West Ham I’d tell Marseille that we will start talking if a £30m offer comes in. If a bid of that figure comes in then I’d accept it on the last week of the transfer window, making sure I had a replacement or two in the door first.

In the meantime I’d fine him as much wages as is allowed and leave him to rot away in whatever country, house or hotel that he wants. There will be no special or emotional farewell, maybe just a line on the clubs website. I certainly wouldn’t peddle anything calling him a hero or thanking him for his contribution in an Irons jersey. He was nothing more than a mercenary and should be treated as such.

Ultimately if a player is willing to down tools and treat the club with no respect whatsoever then he’s not worth having around in the longterm. Especially if that player has a history of forcing moves and throwing his toys out of the pram.

West Ham will probably not get a like for like replacement. It will be hard to lose someone as gifted as Payet in the set-piece department or as flamboyant but look at his contribution this term, he certainly hasn’t been as successful as he was last year.

Better for the Hammers to ditch the sulky one and get players in that will fight for the cause and get the club back on track!

Posted on January 12th, 2017 by scott
Filed under: Article