Fears growing over Sakho’s future
And given Slav’s refusal to entertain strops from players – as demonstrated by his treatment of Morgan Amalfitano soon after his arrival – there may be some stormy waters ahead for the Senegal striker.
The general view appears to be that Sak is likely to face disciplinary action with most believing he will be on the bench at best for the Manchester United game.
This may have been confirmed by our best source inside the club claimed this morning who said: “His problems are 80 per cent about not being picked Saturday.”
But he added ominously: ” Sadly, there’s always the possibility sadly that somebody somewhere may be trying to engineer a move.”
ClaretandHugh was the first media outlet to report the problems with the manager later claiming he wasn’t picked because the striker had reported a minor injury.
However Slav had told BT ahead of the game that he was not injured which led to confusion over the situation in general.
The mainstream media has picked up on the story only this morning with The Mirror claiming Sak was already unsettled after his latest contract talks stalled, while Dimitri Payet and Cheikhou Kouyate have been handed improved deals.
And they add: “He is also understood to be upset by the club’s intention to land a big-name striker in the summer, which would push him further down the pecking order.”
After reporting the alleged training ground problems they add: “Sakho is said to have reacted badly to discovering he would not be starting against the Gunners, with hat-trick hero Andy Carroll getting the nod instead.
After training on Friday, and despite still being included in Bilic’s matchday squad, Sakho declared he had a knee injury. He was a notable absentee on the Hammers’ team sheet on Saturday.
He also posted a foul-mouthed message on social media, which said: “When I am hated I don’t give a f**k, I do everything to be more hated.”
The message on Snapchat – and its timing – appears to have gone down particularly badly with heavy metal music lover Bilic.
The Mail says that when asked about it, the Irons boss replied: ‘That’s a good one. That’s taken from the band Godsmack. No, leave it.’ Godsmack are a heavy metal band from Massachusetts.