Declan Rice did a half decent job on shoving Roy Keane’s bitter criticism of his midfield defensive abilities back down his throat in Kosovo last night.
The word ‘half’ is deliberately chosen because nobody came out of the first 45 minutes with any serious credit but it all changed in the second and the 20 year old Hammer looked on the case in a big way.
Ahead of the match Keane had been doing his irritating impersonation of a cheesed off grandfather, about 30 years too early, explaining that virtually everything in the lad’s game needs improvement.
But after a very good second 45 minutes he was significantly quiet about a performance which was significantly better than anything he had had to say before the game.
And towards the end of the 90 minutes Dec made a quite magnificent intervention to deny a Kosovon striker a one on one close to goal on stopper Pope to make accusations of poor positional play look pretty stupid.
At this level criticism must be expected -hopefully if there#s a next time Mr Keane can provide some which is a little more constructive.
At the end of the night Declan came out a winner over the Irishman on points!
Roy Keane the font of all knowledge on football related matters. Pity he is still bitter for Declan choosing England over the Ireland team.
the problem with Keane is he doesn’t realise that today midfield players don’t go out to cripple the opposition, put them in hospital, intimidate the officials and opponents, and get away with it just because he plays for Man Utd. The guy is a psychopath, a total “nut job” that should be in prison for the violence he dished out on a football field. Typical ITV, having him and Glenn Hoddle as pundits.
Why’s he having anything to do with an England game? His views have no significance. He is so pompous and opinionated I rarely find myself able to listen. Nothing he says ever has any gravitas with me, as his history of bad mouthing present day players and attempting to hospitalise his contemporaries reduced him to a bad tempered thug.
Sour grapes, no more, no less.
Personally from a West Ham point of view if Declan never played for England again I would not be disapointed.
Has upset and failed at every team he has tried to manage, should stick to what he knows hare coursing and caravaning!
Isn’t decs position defensive midfield , yep thought so , they kept a clean sheet , he done his job . A good job at that , just keep your head in son you are going to be world class , now gee the lads up for Saturday. COYI ⚒⚒⚒