West Ham manager Slaven Bilic hails him as the best thing to happen to the club since Paolo Di Canio, chairman David Sullivan ranks him alongside Trevor Brooking and Carlos Tevez in the pantheon of East End heroes and the fans serenade him with a ditty declaring him better than Zinedine Zidane.

For Dimitri Payet, the eulogies might be beginning to sound a little uneasy but nobody at West Ham will mind while the Frenchman is bewitching Upton Park, bamboozling defenders and leading an improbable assault on the Barclays Premier League top four.

On Saturday, Everton were the latest to be undone by Payet in another performance of fleet-footedness, dazzling pirouettes, precise set-piece delivery and a dramatic late goal that secured a 3-2 victory and lifted West Ham to fifth in the table.

West Ham attacker Dimitri Payet celebrates after scoring a 90th-minute winner against Everton on Saturday

Payet is mobbed by his West Ham team-mates after scoring what turned out to be the winning goal

West Ham fans believe Payet is just as good - if not better - than his fellow countryman Zinedine Zidane

Chairman David Sullivan ranks him alongside Carlos Tevez (left) and Trevor Brooking, while manager Slaven Bilic believes he is following in the footsteps of club legend Paolo Di Canio (right)

DIMITRI PAYET'S FORMER CLUBS 2005-07: Nantes (34 appearances, 5 goals) 2007-11: Saint-Etienne (148 apps, 25 goals) 2011-13: Lille (94 apps, 19 goals) 2013-15: Marseille (83 apps, 15 goals) 2015- : West Ham (25 apps, 9 goals) 2010- : France (15 apps, 1 goal) Advertisement

After signing from Marseille last summer, Payet has scored eight league goals and created 81 chances — 43 more than West Ham’s next best Mark Noble, 35 more than Lionel Messi of Barcelona this season and the fourth best in Europe’s top five leagues.

‘I think you English guys love this kind of player,’ says Rene Girard, the former Lille and Montpellier coach who called up Payet to the France Under 21 side in 2007.

‘He is a Cantona type, a Gascoigne type. It’s that bit of arrogance, the strut, the artistic sense and that innate ability to illuminate a match. He’s had that kind of impact on West Ham.’

Payet’s form persuaded Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua to offer £38million for the midfielder last month and also explains why West Ham responded instantly by making him the highest-paid player in the club’s history as he signed a five-year deal worth £125,000-per-week.

Bilic believes Payet is a serious contender for the end-of-season individual awards, which makes it all the more surprising to learn that he turns 29 later this month.

So why has it taken so long for the midfielder to announce himself as a serious presence on the European stage?

His story begins more than 6,000 miles away from Green Street. Payet spent his childhood years in the French territory of Reunion, a remote Indian Ocean island with a tropical climate and idyllic beaches that lies midway between Madagascar and Mauritius.

It is home to one of the world’s most active volcanoes, Le Piton de la Fournaise, known for its frequent but short-lived eruptions.

Yet for all its exotic allure, Reunion, an overseas department of France, mirrors its mother country. The locals drive the same Peugeots and Renaults you would see on the streets of Paris and patisseries furnish every street corner.

Payet adored his ‘paradise’ upbringing, his father introducing him and his two younger brothers to football, and he soon began playing for local teams Saint Philippe and Saint-Pierroise.

A young Payet worked in a clothes store during his time at Nantes, he now earns £125,000 a week in England

Attacking midfielder Payet celebrates after scoring for Nantes against Marseille in September 2006

His potential was swiftly recognised, attracting the attention of scouts on the France mainland. Saint-Pierroise had a reciprocal agreement with Le Havre and scouts recruited the 12-year-old Payet, who moved to France, where he shared a room at the club’s academy with former Liverpool forward Florent Sinama Pongolle. ‘He found it hard when he came here,’ says Michael Lebaillif, who coached Payet between the age of 14 and 16.

‘He came over here alone as a kid. He went home at Christmas or Easter but that’s really tough, to be without your family.

‘He lacked maturity and he did some silly, childish things. He had problems in the nearby school. He lacked rigour and the ability to really dedicate himself to his football at that age. He never did anything terrible but it was an accumulation of factors.

‘He was always technically sound. On the field, he was always obsessed with scoring beautiful goals, he was attempting acrobatics during games and rarely chose the easy option.

‘It is the old story of expression against rigour and we certainly want our players to enjoy themselves but he did enjoy those bicycle kicks a bit too much!’

But at the age of 16, Le Havre decided to cut their ties with Payet. On entering the academy building at Le Havre, you wander past framed photographs of Riyad Mahrez, Paul Pogba, Lassana Diarra and many more products of this highly-impressive youth system.

The only picture of Payet, however, is found in an old storage cupboard. It is a portrait of the full academy squad from his days as a teenager. Perhaps poignantly, Payet is sat on the bottom row, in the furthest chair to the right and it would appear a fitting snapshot of a rather unedifying experience at the club.

Payet (pictured with Belgium's Eden Hazard) has only been capped 15 times by the France national team

Payet was born in the same year as fellow French stars Samir Nasri (centre) and Karim Benzema (right)

Lebaillif says: ‘It might surprise you now when you see how ripped and muscular he is, but you have to understand that at that age, he was frail, weak and he lacked pace. He was encountering stronger players who were more physically developed and he struggled to hold his own on the field. He was always technically impressive but the surprise to us has been his physical evolution.’

Academy director Johann Louvel says: ‘It was a shock when it happened but also expected. He knew how it was going. We believe we allowed Dimitri to become the person he is today.

‘It was part of his development. It’s not a regret for us. We’ve spoken since, we have a very good relationship. I am very fond of him.’

Le Havre secured him a move to AS Excelsior but that meant a return to Reunion Island.

Payet is part of the feted French 1987 generation, but while Karim Benzema, Samir Nasri and Hatem Ben Arfa were lifting the Under 17 European Championship in 2004, Payet was not yet on the radar of the French youth team scouts.

Payet would stay on his home island for two years, playing in Excelsior’s modest 1,200 capacity stadium, before Nantes offered him a lifeline at the age of 18 in 2005. Local reports suggested Nantes were even given the option of terminating the contract after six months if they so wished.

The club’s former manager Rene Degenne recalled to French publication La Provence: ‘The day I watched him, it was so windy, and wind is the worst enemy of a footballer. Dimitri was poor, to be truthful but did two or three classy things that stood out. On that alone, I took a chance on him.’

At Nantes, he worked part-time in a clothes store to supplement his income, breaking into the first-team in the 2005-2006 season before signing for Saint-Etienne, followed by subsequent progressive moves to Lille and Marseille in 2011 and 2013 respectively.

Payet sealed a £10.7million move to Premier League outfit West Ham in June after impressing for Marseille

The West Ham ace was involved in a training ground bust-up with Fabien Barthez during his time at Nantes

Payet also previously clashed with Blaise Matuidi (left), punching his then Saint-Etienne team-mate in the head

Questions have persisted over his attitude. At Nantes, there was an altercation in training with former Manchester United goalkeeper Fabien Barthez, who was moonlighting as an outfield player and launched a crude tackle on Payet. The winger, a youngster at the time, reacted furiously. At Saint-Etienne, there was an on-field brawl with team-mate Blaise Matuidi, as Payet punched the midfielder in the head.

Despite such misdemeanours, Payet has demonstrated gradual progression. His manager at Lille, Rudi Garcia, explains: ‘His development has been slow but now he has arrived. Previously, his issue has been consistency. I think with every transfer he has improved and now we see the fruits of this.

‘He’s always been special, we beat Paris Saint-Germain to his signing. For a coach, he is amazing because he is genuinely ambidextrous, he can play left, right, or through the middle comfortably.

‘For me, he had one good game and then one bad game. He now understands that you have to give 100 per cent in every match. The English school of football is good for him. You can’t survive without that intensity. For all the talent in the world, hard work is the key.

‘He is now more complete, a good character. The decision to reject the move to China was big. It demonstrates his maturity and the fact he has grown up.

‘He is a big talent. Look at his free-kicks. Did you see that one against Blackburn in the FA Cup? Wow! He would stay every day for hours to perfect his free-kicks.

‘It became pure repetition and calm execution. He practises like a pianist ensuring he is always in tune.’

Payet has mastered the skill of scoring directly from free-kicks such as the one against Blackburn

France national team manager Didier Deschamps appears to have reservations about calling up Payet

In France, there is growing appreciation for Payet. He impressed for Marseille last season under manager Marcelo Bielsa, admitting that he ‘spent one year with Bielsa but learned enough for the next 10 years’.

Sources close to the Marseille dressing room say Argentine Bielsa pushed Payet like never before, challenging him to apply himself for every minute of every game or threatening to drop him to the substitutes’ bench. Payet was left out on occasion, but also contributed 17 assists and it was a highly fruitful relationship.

One man who remains unconvinced is the France national team manager Didier Deschamps and, remarkably, very few across the Channel expect Payet to be in the Euro 2016 squad.

One L’Équipe journalist explains: ‘Mathieu Valbuena is ahead of him in the pecking order and possibly Ben Arfa, too. Of course there is Antoine Griezmann and Anthony Martial, too. There is big competition.

‘Valbuena has a great history with the national team while Payet doesn’t and he gave a silly interview last year in which he suggested it was an “injustice” that Deschamps overlooks him.’

When Payet made his full France debut against Romania in 2010, he sent the signed shirt to his mother on Reunion Island.

He still longs for a place at Euro 2016. If his star keeps shining bright at West Ham, he may yet transport both his own and his club’s aspirations towards their very own paradise.