Declan Rice called it the best night of his life at West Ham and declared: “Everybody knows how much I love the West Ham fans and tonight they were phenomenal.
Dec was laughing and smiling and looked entirely like a player who was more than ready to stay at the club he clearly loves and said that he has no worries who we play next in the competition and then declared: “This was the best night of my West Ham life”.
He said: “We’ll take anybody and whoever comes to the London Stadium will know that they will face a club who will give them a real game.
“The fans were extraordinary. I love them and they really were the twelfth man on the pitch. So long as you give 100 per cent that’s all they ask for. They are brilliant.”
Once again it was night of incredible emotion as Andriy Yarmolenko – who has been to hell and back since the Russian invasion of his country – snatched the winner to ensure that tears of joy flowed all over the stadium.
And Declan revealed that after the game he had sat alone away from the lads in the dressing room attempting to compute what had happened in his life.
He told BT Sport:” He was on his won trying to take in what had happened. He’s been through so much and tonight he again showed what a great player he is – switching the play and producing a wonderful performance. All the lads are so proud of him.”
The draw for the quarter finals are made tomorrow ( Friday) at 12.15pm and having beaten serial winners of the competition in Seville, West Ham have no reason to fear anyone.
