Report: West Ham shocked by Marseille ending interest in Payet

West Ham United has an unhappy player with nowhere to go.

Marseille distancing itself from a move for unsettled midfielder Dimitri Payet has alarmed the east London club, sources told Sky Sports, with the prospect of having a player on the books that doesn't want to be there seeming rather ominous.

Related - Report: Marseille abandons Payet chase

But West Ham believes that it's just a bluffing tactic from Marseille, which is trying to pay no more than £25 million to see the France international return to the Stade Velodrome - a drop from Payet's £30-million valuation.

Irons boss Slaven Bilic revealed that his talisman wanted to leave the London Stadium last week, just a year-and-a-half on from when he signed from Marseille for £10.7 million and romped to the club's Player of the Year prize. In the 2015-16 campaign, Payet scored nine goals and laid on 12 assists.

This season, his productivity has dropped a touch - he's fashioned two strikes and six assists in 18 appearances - but he's comfortably made more key passes (74) than anyone else in the Premier League.

That would perhaps highlight an issue of Payet's. Despite assurances from the boardroom that a seasoned goal-getter would be purchased in the summer to latch onto his pinpoint deliveries, Simone Zaza, Jonathan Calleri, and the raw Ashley Fletcher were acquired. West Ham is positioned 12th now, but faced early-season struggles at the wrong end of the division - a far cry from challenging for the Champions League places last term.

If Payet doesn't engineer an exit from West Ham, the club will have a player making £125,000 per week who hasn't featured since Jan. 6 and has no signs of troubling Bilic's lineup anytime soon.

West Ham travels to Middlesbrough in Saturday's slate of Premier League fixtures.