West Ham United boss Slaven Bilic revealed this week that Dimitri Payet no longer wants to play for the club, and further details are starting to leak out.
With the Hammers struggling and the French international falling short of the high standards that he set last season, things aren’t looking good at the London Stadium.
After a string of decent results, the club moved away from the relegation zone. However, there are just seven points between them and the drop zone after 20 games as Bilic looks to avoid seeing their season unravel again.
It won’t be helped by this latest report from The Sun, as it’s claimed that Payet and Bilic were involved in a heated discussion at training on Tuesday, during which the former insisted he would fake an injury in order to avoid playing and to force a move away.
As noted in the report, Payet insisted that he had a back problem, but the medical staff at the club have not been able to discover any specific issues with him.
It’s a sad state of affairs given the influence that Payet had last season and his overall quality, but the 29-year-old looks as though he may have played his final game for West Ham.
Further, it’s reported that he called in sick to miss training on Friday, but when club officials visited his house, they found no-one home as this situation looks to continue to take several turns for the worse.
Payet has three goals and eight assists in 22 appearances for West Ham so far this season, which is a dramatic drop off from last year when he contributed 15 goals and 17 assists in 44 games.