Declan Rice heads into his 200th first team game for the Hammers this afternoon.
That he may be leaving in the summer doesn’t matter for today to him as he is totally focused on a win and hoping to celebrate another goal of his own.
Declan Rice responds to West Ham fans
According to our sources inside the club there has still been no contact from Arsenal who are now heavily believed to be favourites to sign him.
However, Chelsea remain in the frame with then likely arrival of Mauricio Pochettino at Stamford Bridge although a few of us continue to harbour hopes Declan’s Hammers heart will turn back to us.
Declan has become a magnificent servant to this club and it would be entirely appropriate were he to score in a Hammers win this lunchtime.
In the meantime a London Stadium source told us: “There has been no contact from anywhere for Declan .“
Commenting on his 2ooth appearance and today’s game Declan told the official West ham site: “Of course, to wear the armband as well over the past two seasons is a massive honour.
It’s really special, especially doing it for this Club. If you look at the captains West Ham has had and the top players too, it’s special. I have been loving it and I really relish it as well.
But it’s now about moving onto the next 200! And I still have parts of my game I want to improve and develop. I want to be able to get on the ball more and dictate play more. For me, it is about getting on the ball as much as possible, making key passes and keep adding goals to my game.
Scoring a goal is the best feeling but I am running out of celebrations now! If I score against Crystal Palace – I don’t know what I will do.
I don’t score enough to have a trademark celebration. But I promised Kevin Nolan I’d do the ‘Chicken’ if I score so I might have to get that out!
As we head into the match against Crystal Palace there has been a good run of performances and we were unlucky not to get anything from Liverpool on Wednesday.
Even with that defeat, we have only lost two matches in the last eleven games. We want to win as many matches as we can, and, of course, we want to lift a trophy as well.
Hopefully, it can be a big end to the season for us. And we want that continue our good start to 2023 at Selhurst Park on Saturday.”