Why Real Madrid Shouldn't Sign West Ham's Dimitri Payet
He’d been there for the unveilings of all the Galacticos, including Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo and David Beckham, but Alfredo Di Stefano had never seen anything like this.
It was January 2009, and Real Madrid’s honorary president was handed a white shirt bearing the No. 18 before turning to his right and presenting it to its grinning recipient. Julien Faubert was now a Los Blancos player.
TOP NEWS
Madrid Fines Players $590K 😲
'Mbappé Out' Petition Gaining Steam 😳
Star-Studded World Cup Ad 🤩
The then-26-year-old French utility player had arrived on loan from West Ham United to the bemusement of Madrid supporters everywhere.
He was joining a squad overseen by Juande Ramos, who also signed Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Lassana Diarra that January. They had been knocked out of the Copa del Rey at the last-32 stage by Segunda B team Real Union, were hammered 5-0 on aggregate by Liverpool in the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League and would finish second in La Liga, nine points behind Barcelona.
They also finished second in La Liga this season and were kicked, rather than knocked, out of the Copa del Rey at the last-32 stage, but as this incarnation of Real Madrid prepares for a UEFA Champions League final, things are nowhere near as desperate at the Santiago Bernabeu as they were back then.
But Real do, however, find themselves linked with another French player from West Ham United, albeit one a lot more gifted than Faubert, whose Madrid career lasted just two games and saw him fall asleep on the bench at Villarreal.
According to Paul Doyle of the Guardian, Dimitri Payet's name is doing the rounds in the corridors of power in the Spanish capital, and based on his numbers from his first Premier League season, it is easy to see why.
After signing from Marseille for a bargain deal worth simply “more than £10 million,” according to BBC Sport, Payet registered nine goals and 12 assists in the 2015/16 league campaign, per the Premier League's official site, as the Hammers finished seventh, adding another three strikes in the FA Cup.
In a West Ham side injected with spirit by the impressive Slaven Bilic and driven by emotion in their final season at the Boleyn Ground, Payet was quite fantastic. He was so often the focal point for attacks, demanding the ball and adding both pace and quality to forward movements.
His set pieces quickly gained a reputation as being perhaps the best in the division, and he thoroughly deserved his nomination for the PFA Players’ Player of the Year award, which Leicester City’s Riyad Mahrez eventually won.
In among all that, and just six months into his Hammers career, West Ham replaced Payet’s existing contract with a new one, per BBC Sport, adding six months to his deal and doubtless either adding or removing a clause at either their or the player’s request.
That was an interesting move and surely came as a result of interest from elsewhere, interest that is being driven by Real, according to the aforementioned Guardian report.
But regardless of his quality, it is difficult to imagine Payet fitting in at the Bernabeu, at least not without the departures of some of the club’s other impressive attacking-midfield talent, such as James Rodriguez and Isco.
One or both of those could easily leave this summer, but even if they do, a move for Payet would still be a little on the surprising side.
West Ham, buoyed by their move to London’s Olympic Stadium and backed up by the vast riches from the Premier League’s new television deal, will not want to sell him, and they would be likely to quote an exorbitant figure for Payet’s services. At the age of 29, you have to wonder whether he’d be worth the expense.
Add in to the fact his deadly set-piece ability would be overlooked once Cristiano Ronaldo demanded to be given the ball, and Payet simply wouldn’t be as dynamic a player in Madrid as he is in east London.
Some people choose to look at football as simply numbers and would see Payet’s goals and assists and start to imagine what they could do for a Real team looking to hunt down Barcelona in La Liga, but it isn’t as simple as that.
Payet’s performance level has gone up because he is the main man in his team, and he could never be that at Real Madrid, a club for whom your commercial value so often dictates your importance to the team.
A move for Payet wouldn’t be a bizarre mistake on par with the Faubert deal, but it wouldn’t quite seem to fit what manager Zidane is looking for.
The money would be better spent elsewhere.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
