Declan Rice has revealed how the Hammers squad were blown away by Jesse Lingard from Day One.
The Manchester United loanee’s development at the Hammers, after being ignored by Manchester United this season, has been extraordinary but the Hammers regular skipper saw it coming from Day One.
Indeed, he was aware of the 28-year old’s many virtues prior to that and when asked how good he was by players he explained and has since been proved 100 per cent right.
Declan – talking to Football Focus said: “I am delighted for him. Before he came to West Ham, a couple of the assistant coaches and a couple of the players were like ‘what’s he like? Good player?’.
“I just said ‘wait till he comes and then you will see (how good he is)’. I think in the first session the lads were just blown away by how good he was.
“Technically so good. He picks up so many good spaces for a midfielder to pass into and without him at West Ham then I don’t know where we would be.”
Since then he has gone on to play stormers for the club and one for the Three Lions and despite Gareth Southgate saying he was perhaps fortunate to get a recall he proved conclusively he was worth it.
His summer now looks tied up internationally but the big issue for us is that he becomes a permanent signing at the club.
As things stand we are at the front of the line with the attacking midfielder regularly claiming how happy he is here and that the club invested heavily in loan terms demonstrates their enthusiasm to back the manager choices of player.
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