Bilic responds to Payet speculation

  • by Staff Writer
  • Thursday, 22nd December 2016

Slaven Bilic says that he and the club will do all they can to ensure Dimitri Payet remains a West Ham player.

Speculation over the French international's future intensified recently when he gave two interviews to French media in which he refused to rule out a potential January move, in the wake of interest from elsewhere in the Premier League and abroad.

However Bilic insisted today that the club had no intention of releasing the 30-year-old midfielder from the long-term contract, worth circa £125,000 per week he signed in February of the year.

"We don’t want to sell him," Bilic told the assembled press during his pre-Swansea press conference.

"Speculation is starting [to mount] again because he is a great player. But he has a long contract with us and we are going to do anything we can to make sure he stays.




"In those interviews he leaves the gate open, but it doesn’t mean he is not committed to the club. There is nothing wrong with saying he misses the Champions League.

“He is committed, he is in training and he plays every game for us. He has got a long contract and he knows we want him to stay. But he is still very ambitious and that is why he is a great player because he wants to improve.

"That is why the speculation is going on. Nothing has come from us, but we can’t stop these stories. The only way it stops is if he is injured or he starts to play badly, but we don’t want that."

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