New Irons hero gets big respect

Winston Reid has spoken in glowing terms of the new young Hammers hero Declan Rice after the 18 year old’s Man of the Match performance against Spurs.

Speaking to the official site Reid said: “Declan is not really new [to senior football] because he’s been up with us for a while now. He’s always really willing to learn and is a good young kid and I’m really, really pleased for him.

“I remember when I was 18, coming in and playing senior football, so I’m really pleased for him.”

Of the game the Kiwi said: “Going to Wembley, it was always going to be tough as Spurs are a very good team, but we had a game plan and we stuck to it, dug in and put in a really good performance.

“I thought the boys worked really, really well, considering we played two days earlier [against West Bromwich Albion].

“It comes down to hard work. The guys have got good character and they’re putting in the hard yards on the training pitch and you can see we are getting the benefits and the results.

“We’ve gone to Wembley and got a point. We’d obviously loved to have won the game, but fair play to Spurs because they scored a good goal as well. We’ll take the point and move on.”