HAMMERS’ AFRICAN MAYHEM IS ALL DOWN TO HENRY

IF WEST HAM have been blighted by difficult African players of late, there is only one problem for Tony henry as head of player recruitment. he recruited them. It is rather self-serving, then, to slander an entire continent, and its workforce, for what is basically the club’s problem.

If in henry’s experience African players have a ‘bad attitude’ and ‘cause mayhem’ then maybe he needs to dig deeper into backgrounds and character. Certainly, Chelsea never made that complaint of Michael Essien, Didier Drogba or Salomon Kalou.

Indeed, for every Diafra Sakho at West ham, there has been a Dimitri Payet, who was just as much trouble, but a lot less African. Andre Ayew (below) may have disappointed, but so did Enner Valencia. Sofiane Feghouli never worked out, but neither did Robert Snodgrass. Maybe West ham’s recruitment issues are less about where you are from than where you are at.

Racial profiling is too sinister a term for what exists in football, but there are preferences when selecting foreign players. The ability to speak English is valued, which gives those from Scandinavia, holland and, to a lesser extent, Germany an advantage. Players from Europe, certainly northern Europe, are considered more likely to adapt than those from South America.

After Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen had been such a success with Ipswich, Dutch players were thought particularly suitable.

Yet this is far from an exact science. Pierre van hooijdonk could play up just as much as any African player of henry’s experience — and West ham have arguably never made a worse signing than Marco Boogers from Sparta Rotterdam.

Not all Scandinavian players are well adjusted, not all South Americans hate the cold. Luis Suarez’s time in England was not without controversy but he nearly won Liverpool’s first title of the Premier League era. And while Carlos Tevez was high-maintenance, Sergio Aguero and Pablo Zabaleta could not have made life easier for Manchester City.

Recruitment is about people, not countries, and certainly not continents. Any visitor to the Africa Cup of Nations will soon discover the enormous divides between north and south, east and west, and certainly English- and French-speaking.

Imagine if Liverpool had been put off signing Mohamed Salah of Egypt because Senegalese El hadji Diouf was a nasty piece of work.

Maybe henry also sees the worst of players because West ham are a selling, stepping-stone club. When Cheikhou Kouyate signed from Anderlecht in 2014, for instance, he would no doubt have been aware that Chelsea had been monitoring him. Perhaps he was informed that if he impressed at West ham, Chelsea would be convinced of his talent.

Similarly Sakho, on the day he signed from Metz in 2014, talked of playing for ‘one of the big English clubs’. he meant West ham — but, plainly, bigger English clubs are available.

It could also be argued that West ham hardly discouraged disruptive behaviour by caving into Payet a year ago. In selling cheap to Marseille shortly before the deadline, they made it clear that a troublesome player would get his way in the end.

It can hardly come as a shock to henry that others have seen a blueprint. It is believed that in the days before their recent moves, both Sakho and Ayew were problematic.

None of which excuses henry’s generalisation about a continent. he was suspended by West ham yesterday, pending investigation, and an ‘African and proud’ post on Kouyate’s Instagram feed suggests a club with a significant African contingent may not have heard the last of this.

Any African player now wanting out has an excuse. And this time, it certainly will not be them who have caused the mayhem.