DIMITRI PAYET
West Ham fans clearly think pretty highly of Dimitri Payet, but as the French playmaker explains, he has had to adapt – and quickly
Look at the cherubic features of the finest footballer to wear West Ham United’s claret and blue since Paolo Di Canio’s heyday and you’d find it hard to believe he has a bit of a temper. Dimitri Payet, combustible? Surely not. But the player that has brought such measured brilliance to his first season in the Premier League insists he can be as volcanic as the rocky landscape of his homeland, the Indian Ocean island ofréunion.
“You haven’t seen it yet in England, and I hope you never will as it’d mean something’s not right, but yeah, I can be temperamental,” Payet tells Fourfourtwo. “Generally speaking, I’m fairly calm, but when I lose my temper I’m difficult to control. I can be annoying. I’m fully aware of that. But I’m older now. I try to channel my feelings and react to situations differently to the way I would in the past.
“It also depends on your relationship with your team-mates and manager. When things are going smoothly, you can sort things out in a rational manner. Things are going pretty well right now, so there’s no problem.”
That’s an understatement. Payet’s debut season in England has been so exceptional that he has graduated with remarkable speed to that elite band of players for whom the cliché ‘worth the entrance fee alone’ rings true. Twitter, Facebook and rolling news channels have been alive with statistics showing that West Ham’s win rate rockets when the 28-year-old playmaker is on the pitch.
He has posted formidable numbers, but you don’t need access to Opta’s data feed to know that Payet has been one of the stars of the season. Upton Park regulars, crowds across the country and television audiences around the globe have marvelled at a repertoire that includes shimmies, dribbles, perfectly weighted passes caressed between defenders and free-kicks expertly curled into the top corner.
Everyone knows about Payet now, but he was something of a hipster’s favourite when he moved to the Premier League last June. With 15 full France caps to his name he was hardly flying below the radar, but he was far from a household name either. And that was just the way the man from Saint-pierre liked it.
“I can’t deny that being a relative unknown helped me a lot when I arrived,” he says. “The fact I wasn’t under a great deal of pressure
despite the sizeable transfer fee [£10.7 million] meant I could go about my business without too much fuss. It was like being a young player, a new player. Little by little, people started to find out what sort of player I was. I was able to work ‘in the shadows’, you might say.”
Payet’s immediate impact is all the more remarkable given that in France he suffered from what you could call ‘first-season syndrome’. Each time he changed clubs, he took a year to adapt to his new surroundings. He would shine one week, disappear the next, and only really find his feet 12 months after his arrival. A total of just 14 goals and 12 assists in 100 first-season appearances with Saint-etienne, Lille and Marseille – the three teams he represented after leaving his first senior club, Nantes – tells its own story.
In contrast, at West Ham he has played as though he’d spent his whole life waiting to pull on the shirt. How does the man himself explain the paradox of adapting quickly in England when it always took him so long in France?
“I think maturity is a factor,” Payet says. “As you get older, you have more experience and tend to deal with situations differently. And the two seasons I spent at Marseille [2013-15] have played a key role as well. The pressure at Marseille is so great that you have to be focused and on your game all the time. You cannot afford to ease off at any point. If you can do it at Marseille, you can do it anywhere.
“My time there turned me into a strong character. And my second season was pretty successful [Payet topped Ligue 1’s assists chart with 16]. I spoke to Slaven Bilic and he said he wanted me to play in exactly the same way here as I had done at Marseille – organise the game, have a fairly free role on the pitch and be clinical in terms of goals and assists. So it was pretty much a case of picking up where I left off at Marseille last season. That made it easier to adapt quickly to the team.”
Not that Payet has just turned up and continued playing the same way he did in France. He has had to change his approach in order to thrive in his new surroundings. The line about the Premier League being more physically demanding than its top European equivalents is trotted out time and time again, but as Payet has found, it’s absolutely accurate.
“The physicality, intensity and pace of the game are a lot greater than in Ligue 1,” he says. “I had played seven or eight full seasons of first-team football in France, but after the first two weeks of training over here I was struggling to keep up, in terms of the physical impact and rhythm of the sessions. I told myself I would need to adapt quickly, as these are some of the things that make this league so difficult. The only way I was able to adapt was by working hard. I knew I’d need to step it up. Technique is one thing, but in order to have any sort of presence on the pitch, I had to deal with those shortcomings first.
“I’d pick up the odd bit of advice here and there. At France international get-togethers, England-based players would talk about the Premier League. They’d say how tough it was, how every team had good players, how every game was difficult. They’d talk about how much energy it demands – that there are games on Boxing Day and no winter break. I knew I’d need to be ready.”
That ‘adapt or die’ nature has brought out the best in him. A common criticism of Payet for or much of his time in France was that he would play to the level of the team. If the side had a good day, so would he; if the team were below par, he’d d be poor. He wasn’t a talismanic figure who’d inspire team-mates or drag up the standard of the entire team. Yet almost from the start start, that’s exactly the sort of character he has been at West Ham. Payet has retained the skills while seemingly adding a bigger heart and greater lung capacity.
If the £10.7m West Ham paid for Payet looks a bargain now, some Hammers fans might still be surprised that Bilic persuaded him to join in the first place. At Lille and Marseille he played in the Champions League in three consecutive seasons. Down the years, Ligue 1 clubs shelled out an accumulative £20m in transfer fees for his services, a considerable total given the relatively depressed economic climate of France’s top tier. He also had fantastic places of work in which to improve on a daily basis: Lille’s Luchin training ground is generally regarded as France’s finest, and Marseille’s Commanderie headquarters are very impressive.
Yet Payet seems perfectly at home among the portacabins and toilet blocks of West Ham’s more rudimentary training base at Chadwell Heath in east London. And the club’s early exit from the Europa League – a young West Ham side went out to Romanian outfit Astra Giurgiu in August – hasn’t dented his belief that there are good times to come.
“The move to the new stadium [the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, scheduled for 2016-17] was definitely a factor in my thinking when I moved here,” Payet enthuses. “This club wants to grow, and is giving itself the means to grow. A new stadium is an important sign – it marks a new chapter. I wanted to be a part of that.
“Actually, this is a significant side-note in my career: it will be the third time I’ve played in a new stadium. After I signed for Lille the club moved into their new ground, then I joined Marseille as the Stade Velodrome was being renovated. So West Ham will be the third time for me. When I heard about the new stadium plans, I said to myself that perhaps it was a sign that this was the right move for me.
“I was also lucky enough to play with Joe Cole at Lille. When he talked about West Ham you could tell he was speaking from the heart. It was obvious how much he loved the club. He would talk about how passionate the supporters are, so it wasn’t a complete step into the unknown when I moved here. The coach was a big factor as well. He explained clearly what he wanted from me, and I could tell he really wanted to sign me. Having a good relationship with my coach is very important.”
Payet says he didn’t text Cole for tips before putting pen to paper but, like Cole before him, he has learned first-hand how very special a relationship with the Hammers fans can be. The West Ham faithful already have a song in his honour – a neat little number to the tune of Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy Breaky Heart – and Payet
“At Lille, when Joe Cole talked about West Ham, it was from the heart. It was obvious he loved the club”
has quickly identified differences in supporters’ behaviour in England and France.
“The level of support at West Ham is the same as I enjoyed at Saint-etienne and Marseille – the passion is fantastic – but the fans here are more patient as well,” he says. “They’re more...” He pauses, searching for the right word, before concluding: “...understanding. At Saint-etienne and Marseille you’re under a lot of pressure to get results and play well. Day-to-day life is hard because you can be on a high one minute and rock bottom the next.
“The fans’ patience helps because we all have a bad game or go through a period where things aren’t going very well. When that happens here, you’ve still got the fans’ support. If you track back to try to win the ball, they’ll be right there, encouraging you. That in turn gives you the confidence to start over and keep trying things further forward.
“I must admit that when I got here, it felt like a ‘little Saint-etienne’ in the sense that the fans are truly crazy about the team and turn up for every game. Their passion is incredible. Home and away, they’re always there to support us. It doesn’t matter whether we play in London or in the north of England – they’ll be there. That makes such a difference.”
Given the bond he has formed with the fans, it’s little wonder Payet barely hesitates before revealing the most emotional moment he has experienced in West Ham colours so far.
“That’s easy: it was the welcome I got from the fans on my comeback from injury against Liverpool. It was very difficult being out for two months, especially because of the way it happened. You can get a knock, or turn your ankle, but it’s difficult to accept getting injured by a tackle like that. For me, it was deliberate,” he says of the robust challenge made by Everton’s James Mccarthy on November 7.
“The fans’ reception when I came on against Liverpool was absolutely incredible. It’s something I will never forget. They show me so much love every day that it’s an absolute pleasure to play for this team, home or away.”
The fans will be wondering just how far a Payet-inspired West Ham can go. Their highest ever final league position was third in 1985-86 – a year before Payet was born, 5,000 miles away – when Frank Mcavennie and Tony Cottee were the star turns. The best they’ve managed since was fifth in 1998-99, when a young Frank Lampard Jr was running the midfield.
Whatever happens, Payet has established himself as one of the English game’s best new arrivals. The ‘wow’ factor he has brought to the league makes his likely omission from France’s Euro 2016 squad all the more baffling.
Payet’s last cap came against Albania in June 2015 2015.. He was taken off at half-time. He may be unlucky to be born in an era when Les Bleus have a wealth of exciting trequartistas and wingers (Nabil Fekir, Antoine Griezmann, Mathieu Valbuena, Anthony Martial, Kingsley Coman, Hatem Ben Arfa, Paul-georges Ntep...) but it would still be controversial among many if he’s overlooked. It seems daft to question a coach of Didier Deschamps’ standing but Payet could rightly argue he has never really been given a chance to show what he can do.
Twenty years after Eric Cantona and David Ginola missed out on France’s Euro 96 squad despite their Premier League heroics, Payet is almost certain to suffer a similar fate.
His face drops when the topic comes up. “The France situation is what it is. A squad has taken shape since the start of the season and I’m not in it. You have to accept it. Honestly, right now I’m focusing on West Ham. All I can do is concentrate on being good on the pitch. We’ve got some important games coming up and we’re fairly well-placed in the standings. We have to try to finish the season strongly.”
It will be painful for Payet to watch the tournament unfold on TV. But perplexed though they may be, Hammers fans won’t mind that much. He’s one of them now. They want him fit and ready for the challenges ahead. “He’s better than Zidane,” they chant in their song about him. That’s debatable, but you take the their point. Right now they wouldn’t swap him for any player on Earth.