Declan Rice is buzzing after the Norwich City victory making it very clear the team set the bar on Saturday for all games and it’s that display by which the squad should measure itself.
There can be little doubt that we are looking at the best Hammers squad assembled in years and by the end of the game the team had done a near perfect demolition job on the newly promoted Canaries.
But that – following on from Watford – is only the start and we need to see that level of performance repeated week in week out …that is what reaching the next level is all about.
From back to front the Irons were on fire for most of the game and but for City keeper Tim Krul we could have run out four or five-nil winners and that would not have been an unduly flattering scoreline such was our superiority in the second period.
Speaking at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/september/02-september/declan-rice-thats-what-we-should-expect-ourselves-every Rice said: “I think that’s what we should expect of ourselves every week – attacking and defending together – and .
“They’ve been in good form, Norwich, and they’ve done well at Liverpool and against Chelsea. Pukki has been on fire, but we kept them at bay and I don’t really remember them creating any chances, to be honest. It’s a good buzz to get the three points.
“It was teamwork really, everyone knowing their jobs, everyone defending an I think, from Seb [Haller] back to Lukasz [Fabianski], everyone knew their jobs.
“We were wary of them because we knew they had good attacking players, but we nullified everything and when we had the ball we looked a real threat in the first half, but in the second half we could have had another three or four, for sure.”
Pic via www.whufc.com
Rice was happy for his teammates for a variety of reasons – Haller for his first home goal, Felipe Anderson for his outstanding performance and Andriy Yarmolenko for ending his ten-month injury heartache with an emotional strike.
He added: “Seb will be buzzing with that. I thought he was excellent, his hold-up play, he’s strong and it’s what we’ve been missing. We needed a striker like that. We paid big money for him and he’s doing excellent, so I’m delighted for Seb.
“Watching Felipe, I just smiled at one point. He was on the wing and he backheeled it to Seb and I just smiled! He’s top notch and we know the qualities he’s got. He could pass to me a bit more on the edge of the box so I could have a couple of shots! Every time Felipe plays, he has the fans out of their seats and that’s what we expect from him.
“Andriy put in another top performance. I was so delighted for him. He hit the post just before and the second one he’s put in the net and I was delighted for him. He deserved that as he’s been out for so long and he missed so much of last year, so you saw how much that meant to him.”