**Former West Ham hero Dimitri Payet has announced his retirement from professional football at the age of 38.**
With the news of Dimitri Payet retiring, the debates have resurfaced, was he our best player in the last 20 years?
There’s a lot of options, obviously there are players with a more legendary status at the club – Jarrod Bowen, Mark Noble, Michail Antonio etc.
However, I don’t think many would argue that there are two standouts in terms of quality – Declan Rice and Dimitri Payet.
They were obviously very different players, different positions, different skill sets. We saw Declan Rice grow from a boy to a world-class footballer, he’s taken his game a level on at Arsenal, however.
That level Declan Rice is at now, Dimitri Payet was at in claret and blue, he was on another planet, like Rice, he was nominated for the Balon D’or.
The skills, the free-kicks, the passing range, the shooting, he had everything you’d want in an attacking midfielder and more.
It’s a shame he wasn’t here for long, if he was he’d unanimously be our best player of the Premier League generation.