By Graham Ruthven (@grahamruthven) The sheer brilliance of Dimitri Payet should no longer be a surprise. The West Ham attacker has been one of the shining stars of this Premier League season, lighting up English soccer with his shimmering talent. A highlight reel of the 2015/16 campaign will feature more than a few moments of magnificent artistry from the Frenchman. But even still, Payet’s freekick goal on Sunday was good enough to catch the breath. Struck from about 25 yards out, the 28-year-old found David De Gea’s net with a wicked, whipped set-piece shot, giving West Ham a 1-0 lead over Manchester United in the FA Cup quarter-final round clash at Old Trafford. Payet has produced many moments of utter genius this season, but this was the best of the lot. “My assistants tell me he scored as similar one during the warm-up,” explained West Ham boss Slaven Bilic afterwards. “He scored one like that against Blackburn in the FA Cup. So he’s got it. But before he took it I said to myself ‘it’s a bit too far out to beat De Gea and has to be special to beat him from there’. But, make no mistake, it was a pure class of magic. The perfect one.” 

 The Frenchman’s rise to the top of the English game is reflective of a wider Premier League trend, with shrewd signings like Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy, Odion Ighalo, and of course Payet, stealing the spotlight from more established stars. They have stepped into the void left by underperforming billboard faces - Wayne Rooney, Sergio Aguero and Diego Costa to name a few such players.  With just nine matches of the Premier League season to be played, West Ham are in the picture for a Champions League place, sitting just two points adrift of Manchester City in fifth place. If Bilic’s side are to pull up a seat at European soccer’s top table, Payet will have been the driving force behind that movement. Even if they miss out, the Frenchman has been the spark from which the Hammers have caught light this season. 

  And yet Payet will most likely miss out on a place in Didier Deschamps’ French national team squad for this summer’s European Championships. Of course, Les Blues already boast a glittering array of attacking talent, with Antoine Griezmann, Karim Benzema and Anthony Martial at their disposal, but it seems remarkable that someone like Payet could miss out.  In such form it seems inevitable that Payet will attract suitors in the transfer market this summer. England’s elite have surely been impressed with what they have seen of the Frenchman this season, and will surely make a play for his services when the window opens. West Ham must be prepared for such advances.