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    •  January 13, 2017

    This isn’t Dimitri Payet’s first strike

    January 13, 2017
    Alastair Mason
    Contributor
    Alastair Mason
    @Alis40thieves

    Every team has that one player. That one diva who knows just how good he is and has to let everyone know. Proving it on the pitch is never enough and they have to find outrageously juvenile ways to let everyone know they’re the best.

    There was Carlos Tevez refusing to come on against Bayern Munich, Yaya Toure and his birthday cake, even Wayne Rooney had a mid career insecurity and had to pretend he wanted to leave, just to feel wanted again.

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    That player for West Ham is Dimitri Payet; banging in 30-yard free-kicks and having his own song hasn’t enough to make him feel special. He has to go full spoilt kid and throw his toys out the pram to show everyone how important he is and remind himself of his talent.

    What you might not know is that this isn’t new for him, Payet’s being throwing these tantrums since day one and West Ham should have known this was coming.

     

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    While this episode is just an inevitability in a long line of tantrums, they’re fairly understandable, and actually you can’t really blame him. Obviously Payet wasn’t going to stay at Nantes in Ligue 2. The 20-year-old sticking with the club that had made him, and not playing in the top flight? Unthinkable. Loyalty earns you nothing.

    Then at Saint-Etienne, if I were playing there and the big bucks and guaranteed titles of PSG came calling I’d walk straight out the training ground and not come back until they let me go. Having him for the reserves was more than they deserved.

    Finally, yeah he might have been a legend and loved at Marseille, but what’s that worth when you can’t abuse their trust and issue the odd ultimatum to try and boost your contract? We’d all do it.

    Slaven Bilic knew this was coming, the West Ham owners knew this was coming and deep down West Ham fans knew this was coming. It just didn’t make sense, having a player that good playing with some slightly above average players was never going to work in the long run. It was good while it lasted and everyone had fun, but ultimately when you are the team then you’re going to throw some crazy power move to remind everyone how important you are.

    There’s every chance this is just Payet giving himself another much needed ego boost, and he’s surfing twitter reading the devastation of West Ham fans as we speak. It’s probably more likely though, as history shows us, Payet’s got bored of his club. Again.

     

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