Plenty of West Ham supporters are unhappy with Marko Arnautović for the way he carried himself when getting his move to Shanghai SIPG – and Martin Allen is no different.
The West Ham legend, who represented the club over 200 times, exclusively spoke to us exclusively during the West Ham Fan Show on Love Sport Radio earlier this week.
One of the topics which were discussed is his disdain for what Arnautović has done to the Hammers.
What made the saga so frustrating for so many is that they knew how good he can be and Allen had high praise for how the Austrian played before his head was turned: “I saw him play 18 months ago and I thought what an amazing player, he was one of the best players I’ve seen in a West Ham shirt.”
However, like many Hammers fans, Allen began to lose respect for him in January when he began to cause problems. He said: “He lost interest in everything and the crowd rightly turned on him.
“The manager would have been absolutely tearing his hair out and his teammates would have been absolutely livid with him.”
The same problems arose once again, with the 30-year-old burning his bridges at West Ham, to the point where everyone had come to the end of their tether with him.
Allen was full of praise for how it was dealt with by West Ham: “This deal is the best thing that could possibly happen, to get him out of the door early to give West Ham a chance to get in early and get a positive replacement.
“The best thing to happen is to get shot of him.”
While some may give Arnautović some leeway after how good he was in claret and blue at times, Allen is having none of it, using another club’s wantaway star to show why: “If Zaha doesn’t get his move from Crystal Palace to Arsenal, I can fully expect that Wilfried Zaha will give 110% for Crystal Palace and he’ll run himself into the ground and do everything he can to get wins for Crystal Palace.
“Arnautovic, he would give nothing.”
You can listen to the show in full on the links below…
iTunes: https://apple.co/2ESc3uN
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2ERo57K
Google: http://bit.ly/2ETm7ni
AudioBoom: http://bit.ly/2ETFHQu
You can also listen to the show live every Wednesday night from 8pm to 9pm on Love Sport Radio.