3 Comments

Rice: “It was shocking …we’re not those players”

Declan Rice claims the squad has learned from the Palace defeat and that it will be a different story against Sheffield United.

Both teams have a similar style of play by getting behind the ball and although the Hammers failed to do so against the south Londoners, the defensive midfielder doesn’t see the outcome against the Blades.

As things stand it’s hard to share the same level of confidence and buoyed by a fine victory over Arsenal, the newly promoted United will be more than up for it when arriving at the London Stadium.

And if Declan’s prophecy is to become a reality we are going to need far, far more from our creative midfielders than we have seen so far, notably against both Palace and Everton.

It’s still so difficult to get the manner of that defeat out of the mind and when the 20 year old talks of it being a shocking performance he’s almost being polite.

Discussing that game and what he expects this week against Sheffield United @ https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/october/23-october/rice-its-massive-us-put-performance he said: “We know we have to  perform better than we did at the weekend. 

You have to be honest and it was shocking, we let the fans down, we let ourselves down.

We reviewed the game and watching it back was tough because we all know we’re not those players. We could have played so much better.

That’s in the past now, we’ll look forward to Saturday because there’s no better way to get over that than another game at home when we’ll try to get the three points.

One win puts us back towards fifth, sixth position. We need to stay positive and we need everyone behind us on Saturday to be that twelfth man and push us on.

Sheffield United have performed well – they’ve beaten Arsenal, drawn with Chelsea, narrowly lost to Liverpool so we know it’s going to be tough for us.

But we’re the home team on Saturday and it’s massive that we go out there and put on a performance. Especially after the Everton game it’s going to be key that we get three points.”

He added: “I expect them to play the same way they have all season, behind the ball, but we’re going to need to break that down.

We came up against that when we played Palace and we struggled at times, but we’ve learned from that and I think on Saturday you’re going to see a performance where we’re looking a real threat in front of goal.

I know the way they play and know it’s going to be tough, it’s going to be physical. They were in the Championship and League One so we’re expecting a tough game..

I’ll be seeing the overlapping centre-backs in midfield. It’ll be a bit strange for sure, but it’s one we need to adapt to and I think we can nullify them going forward if we get the defensive shape and tightness right.

Nobes will get us fired up, the manager will get us fired up and we’re going to go out there wanting to put on a performance to make everything right.”

 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

3 comments on “Rice: “It was shocking …we’re not those players”

  1. Every time they fail dismally. Out come the same old excuses!

  2. Same old excuses!!

  3. Ha ha ha sorry but why write this it just winds people up …we have herd this so many Times before…and probably will do again…

Comments are closed.