New video shows how popular Fulham ace is with West Ham stars as Issa Diop gets the love and a dressing room invite.
After being labelled a ‘monster’ by Jose Mourinho and reportedly once being valued at a staggering £75m by West Ham, it is fair to say Diop failed to live up to the lofty early expectations.
The centre-back was sold to Fulham for around £15m in the summer having never been able to establish himself in the West Ham side under David Moyes.
Diop was reportedly unhappy at his lack of game time at West Ham and was keen to kickstart is stuttering career with London rivals Fulham.
Moyes reluctantly granted his wish and admitted ahead of his side’s 3-1 win over the Cottagers that he wanted Diop to stay.
“We liked Issa a lot, we would have liked Issa to stay,” Moyes said ahead of the weekend’s clash (Football.London).
“At that time, we were having difficulties with centre-halves. We liked Issa a lot, but his choice was he wanted to go and play more, and in the end we granted it.”
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Well it seems Moyes was not the only one who really liked the former Hammers player.
Video shows how popular the Fulham ace is with West Ham stars as Diop gets the love and dressing room invite on his return to the London Stadium.
West Ham have posted behind the scenes footage from the Fulham game and a lot of it focuses on Diop.
Almost to a man Diop is received with big hugs and smiles by staff and his former teammates at the London Stadium.
In fact the faces of staff members and players from Said Benrahma, Angelo Ogbonna, Kurt Zouma, Ben Johnson, Pablo Fornals, Nayef Aguerd, Aaron Cresswell and a host of others beam at seeing their old pal.
Diop is then seen having a chat with Rice, Zouma and Tomas Soucek behind the scenes after the game.
And Rice can be heard saying to Diop: “Yea come in, come in” before a member of the security team is told ‘bring him in’.
It’s great to see and shows that all the talk of the tight team spirit at West Ham is no myth.
Credit to Diop too after it emerged last month that he helped convince new £17m signing Maxwel Cornet to join the club in the summer (The Athletic).
You can see the full video below.