Positive Rice ready for the next level

The astonishing progress made by Declan Rice is not proving enough for the Hammers defensive midfielder.

Such is the faith he has in himself  he is determined to go to the next level as the Hammers head into the second crucial season under Manuel Pellegrini.

As pre-season comes towards it’s end with the prestige friendly against Athletco Bilbao today Rice is gearing up big time after his outstanding campaign last term.

From day one those close to him have always agreed he is a player in pursuit of perfection shrugging off the mistakes as part of his learning curve and it’s situation normal with today’s game just a few hours away.

Maybe the midweek game against Hertha Berlin was not one of his best but there is little doubt that he is in exactly the right frame of mind as he prepares to put the finishing edge on his game ahead of City next weekend.

Speaking at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/august/03-august/declan-rice-i-know-i-can-go-another-level-west-ham-united he said: I’m feeling good for it, and I can feel it on the pitch. I’m feeling fit, I’m feeling good, and that’s the way I wanted to feel.

“I need to progress. I know I can go to another level and with the teammates we’ve got, and everyone wanting to be here with the new additions coming in, I feel like we’re setting ourselves up strongly for a good season.”

“There’s no point having the season I did last year, and then dwelling on it this year and not having a good season.

“I think if you look at it, last season the start killed us, but we only finished, in the end, four points off seventh. If you think of the games we lost last season, which we should be getting results from, we could be well up there.”

“I think we are making the squad stronger. That was the manager’s first season last year, and now we’re getting a full pre-season with him, we know how we work from last season, and everything’s looking really positive and confident.”