Former Republic of Ireland international Tony Cascarino has savaged ex West Ham United attacker Marko Arnautovic.
The Austrian kicked up a huge fuss in the middle of last season as he openly tried to engineer a move to China, eventually getting a switch to Shanghai SIPG this summer.
With Cascarino listing examples of players who have stayed at clubs when they clearly wanted to leave, he quickly mentioned Arnautovic’s name.
“You look at Arnautovic at West Ham, he was a non-event between January and the end of the season,” he said on talkSPORT [22/09; 07:13].
OPINION
You can’t really disagree with Cascarino, here, it’s just not possible. All you had to do was watch one game of Arnautovic at West Ham before January last season and one after the winter transfer window shut to see the truth of the talkSPORT man’s statement. The former Stoke City man was obviously hugely keen to secure a financially lucrative move to the Far East, and when that didn’t happen he completely kicked his toys out of the pram. The Hammers were able to subdue him to the point where he agreed to sign a new … financially lucrative contract with the London Stadium side, only for the Austrian to force through his long-awaited move to Shanghai this summer. As Cascarino says, he was a non-event once it became clear that he didn’t want to play for Manuel Pellegrini’s side anymore. That sort of unprofessionalism is an unfortunate plague of modern day football, and the West Ham faithful will be delighted that they managed to get rid of him in hindsight.
