Creativity
If you had to pick three creative players from West Ham’s last 40 years you’d probably end up picking Brooking, Payet and Di Canio. All three had a wonderful vision when it came for spotting open teammates and also for doing the unexpected. I have seen first hand both Di Canio and Payet manage to worm out of tricky situations or move the ball to players I didn’t think were open. Unfortunately, I’m not old enough to have seen Brooking play first hand, but all accounts point to similar creativity.
Payet recorded an incredible 23 assists in his 60 games for the Hammers, at an assist every 2.6 games whilst Di Canio got 14 in 136 matches, just under 1 in 10. That is a pretty big disparity and not one that I was expecting when I started this article. Given Di Canio played with some decent strikers by Claret and Blue standards, I expected him to be much closer to the Frenchman on this front.
However, for me, it showed not just how many chances Dimi created whilst at West Ham (he has still created more chances for the club than any other player since he joined…even though he left at the start of 2017) but the genuine quality of them as well. Whether it was from open play and a ball straight to your strong foot square in front of goal or from a dead ball situation where the whipped cross falls nicely onto your head as you run towards goal, Payet had a magic touch. I mean, we didn’t have a set striker for that final season at the Boleyn and he still made teams wary of us.
This isn’t to say Di Canio wasn’t creative or inspired on the ball. I mean, I once saw him pulled to the ground, no foul given, but after a brief moan at the ref still, drag the ball away from the opponent before releasing the winger down the line with a 20 yard lofted ball over a defender. All whilst still on the ground. But in terms of productive creativity, Payet is pretty much unmatched. Not just at the club, but in modern footballers who aren’t called Messi.