French find Payet’s a flop in flab fight

L’Equipe cartoon on Payet which says it isn’t only West Ham’s leaders who have been bothering him lately, but also ‘pudding’. The insinuation couldn’t be clearer, with a medic drawn poking his finger into Payet’s excess flab.

Dimitri Payet has been heavily criticised over the state of his weight and is getting no honeymoon period to prove his worth back in France.

Sports Witness reports: “L’Equipe, the French newspaper, wasted no time in pointing out that he’s added a few extra pounds.

The French newspaper reported Payet was around three weeks away from being totally fit, and that had only around 60 minutes of football in his legs.

It was explained that Payet had arrived from West Ham in a poor state: ‘loss of muscle mass and is slightly overweight’

The reasoning was he’d been under stress at West Ham, and Slaven Bilic had sent him to work with the club’s youth side, but then it must be assumed West Ham’s youths aren’t all overweight.

Payet came on as a late substitute for Marseille against Metz on Friday, but wasn’t able to prevent a 1-0 loss. There have also been questions asked by L’Equipe about how true it is he’s actually taken a significant pay drop, given he’s on a longer contract and still very high wages.