West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic says forward Dimitri Payet no longer wants to play for the club – but insists they will not sell him.
The 29-year-old France international has regularly been linked with a move away from West Ham.
“We have said we don’t want to sell our best players but Payet does not want to play for us,” Bilic said. “We are not going to sell him.”
Payet joined West Ham from Marseille for £10.7m in June 2015.
He excelled in his first season with the club, scoring 12 goals and earning a nomination for the PFA Players’ Player of the Year award.
However, even though he has scored on five occasions this season, Payet has failed to hit the same heights, and the Sun reported last week that Bilic had ordered the player to improve his attitude.
He was left on the bench for Friday’s 5-0 FA Cup defeat by Manchester City.
West Ham are 13th in the Premier League, seven points above the relegation zone, and host Crystal Palace on Saturday.
Payet was born on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, where he began his career playing for local clubs Saint-Philippe and Saint-Pierroise.
In 1999, he moved to metropolitan France, joining Le Havre.
Payet spent four years at the club before returning home to spend two years playing for AS Excelsior in the Réunion Premier League.
In 2005, he joined Nantes and, after a successful 2006–07 season, joined Saint-Étienne on a four-year contract.
With Saint-Étienne, he played in European competition for the first time after featuring in the 2008–09 edition of the UEFA Cup.
In the 2010–11 season, he won the UNFP Player of the Month award for September after scoring three goals and helping Saint-Étienne reach first place in the league table.
Following the season, in June 2011, Payet joined the defending champions Lille signing a four-year contract.
He had two years there and a further two at Marseille before moving abroad for the first time to join West Ham.
Payet is a French international. From 2007 to 2008, he represented his country at under-21 level, making eleven appearances and scoring four goals.
In 2010, he was called up to the senior team by manager Laurent Blanc for the first time.
He made his international debut on 9 October 2010 in a UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying match against Romania, appearing as a substitute.
He was a member of the French squad that reached the final of UEFA Euro 2016.
