Lazy, ill-disciplined... he’s done this before

DIMITRI PAYET has tried this trick before. In January 2011, he decided his time was up at Saint-Etienne. Paris Saint-Germain had made an offer so he refused to train and then missed a game against Toulouse. ‘He needs to stop being an idiot,’ said Saint-Etienne’s chairman, Roland Romeyer. Much like West Ham, Saint-Etienne took a firm stance. They refused to sell in January, but he did join Lille five months later. For it to happen once, when he was a naive and petulant 23-year-old, is one thing. At 29 it seems calculated. There was hope that he had turned the corner after his stunning first season at West Ham, but sources in France were warning his lack of discipline could return. Payet spent his childhood on Reunion Island, between Mauritius and Madagascar. He moved to mainland France aged 12, but by 16 he was sent back to the remote French territory by his club, Le Havre, who cited his poor application in training and bad attitude towards schoolwork. He was handed a second chance when he signed for Nantes in 2005. His talent shone brightly but he attracted headlines for the wrong reasons when he confronted goalkeeper Fabien Barthez for tackling him from behind in training. Ex-team-mate Vincent Briant said: ‘He did what he wanted when he wanted to do it.’ At Saint-Etienne in 2010, he had an on-field bust-up with Blaise Matuidi, punching his team-mate in the head. At Marseille, Payet’s form improved but manager Marcelo Bielsa had to be demanding, threatening to drop the forward if he was deemed to be lazy in training. Now at West Ham, the old Payet has returned.