When all is said and done football clubs are just another place of work, and one former West Ham star has recounted the time that one of his team-mates had clearly had enough of the treatment he was getting by colleagues and others.
Back in 2019, West Ham were being managed by Manuel Pellegrini in what turned out to be an ill-fated spell for the Chilean.
Though Pellegrini appeared to be well respected, to the point where the club acceded to his wishes to break their transfer record twice in order to bring in two players – Felipe Anderson and Sebastien Haller – the experiment never really worked.
It’s perhaps with that backdrop in mind that goalkeeper, Roberto’s mistakes were highlighted more than they normally would be.
“I could feel the pressure around and for me, I just wanted Roberto to do well,” David Martin, a fellow West Ham keeper at the time and son of club legend, Alvin Martin, said on The Ironcast.
“Genuinely, hand on heart, I wanted the club to do well and I wanted him to succeed. But then also in the back of your mind, I remember even seeing an interview from you [James Collins] and you were saying, you’ve got to play Dave Martin.
“I was supporting him in training as much as I could, after games talking to him, it was tough. You could feel it in the stands, you could feel it on social media, reading online. For Roberto, I felt really sorry for him.
“He was a good goalkeeper, you could see it was definitely affecting him in training, the last three or four games, it was really getting to him.
“After the Burnley [match] especially, even the players were really starting to turn negatively towards him which was really hard to watch as well, and you could see him coming in in the morning and he didn’t want to speak.
“Going into games, he was actually making some saves, but like what we said before, you’re judged as a goalkeeper by your mistakes and he was making mistakes, there’s no getting around it.”
Effectively flagging up bullying in the workplace is a bit of an own goal from Martin, though it’s worth remembering that a dressing room is a hugely competitive environment at the elite level and if you’re not on your game your team-mates are going to let you know about it.
As it turned out, Roberto didn’t last long in east London and neither did Pellegrini.