West Ham manager Slaven Bilic has confirmed that Dimitri Payet is refusing to play for the club and wants to leave pronto.
Payet quickly became a fan’s favourite at the Hammers after arriving in June of 2015 on a five-year contract, finishing his debut season as the club’s Player of the Year and their joint-top goalscorer.
However, with Bilic’s side floundering this time out, Payet has reportedly had enough and has expressed his desire to move on.
Speaking in his Thursday press conference, Bilic confirmed as much:
Let’s get serious. I have a situation with a player. We have said we don’t want to sell our best players, but Dimitri Payet does not want to play for us.
He wants to leave. We are not going to sell him.
If you don’t believe us, here’s the transcript from West Ham’s official Twitter account…
SB: “We have said we don’t want to sell our best players but @dimpayet17 does not want to play for us. We are not going to sell him.
— West Ham United (@WestHamUtd) January 12, 2017
Well, we can’t exactly say we’re surprised that it’s all gone sour so quickly. West Ham spend terribly last summer and the chickens are coming home to roost this campaign.
The onus is very definitely on the clueless top brass again, though, granted, Payet refusing to play and/or train and giving up at the first sign of a struggle is hardly the most gracious way of going about things.