Who's the West Ham man once named on an elite talent list by Lionel Messi?

West Ham United are currently failing to utilise a former favourite player of Lionel Messi.

The Hammers find themselves in the Championship with ambitions of rising back up to the Premier League.

Things have started well under Nuno Espirito Santo this season as they sit at the top end of the table.

That has been done with a consistent core of players, a mix of familiar faces and fresh signings.

There are also several names who find themselves frozen out at Rush Green.

The irony is, one of those were personally endorsed by Lionel Messi before their career took a downward turn at the London Stadium.

How Lionel Messi backed West Ham flop Maxwell Cornet

Cast your mind back to 2015 when the Argentina international was arguably at the peak of his powers.

He contributed to 83 goals and assists across all competitions in the 2014-15 season and followed that up with a further 61.

In between those two campaigns, Adidas released the Messi15 boot and began the "Backed by Messi" drive.

That saw the man classed by many as the greatest to ever play the game to name 10 prospects who he believed were set to become world class.

Cornet was one of those as he set upon his first full campaign as a regular at Lyon.

He wore the Messi15 boots and went on to score 12 and assist one across 40 appearances.

It's fair to say that since then, the Ivorian has failed to live upto the hype and has now been frozen out by West Ham.

The question remains, is he an outlier or does he follow a worrying trend?

Who else did Messi back for stardom?

You would imagine that such a world class talent would have an eye for it himself.

With Cornet, it doesn't look as if it has necessarily worked.

The rest of the list actually follows a sad trend as none of the players involved truly hit the heights.

They included: Robert Kenedy,  Jeremie Boga, Accursio Bentivegna, James Wilson, Aleksey Miranchuk, Gyasi Zardes, Marcos Lopes and Khiry Shelton.

The only real plus point on the list was Timo Werner as he at least has a Champions League medal to his name, although with the German now playing for San Jose Earthquakes, there isn't too much positive to say.

Cornet can at least feel as if he hasn't let this list down as he arguably sits about average in the list of 10.