Declan Rice’s ‘decision’ to join up with England despite only just recovering from a foot injury is all about the Football Association rather than West Ham or the player himself.
After publishing pictures of himself training alone over the weekend it will have come as a surprise to the player, club and fans that he has been ‘odered’ to join Gareth Southgate’s squad for possible games against Iceland and Denmark.
His involvement is still very much fifty/fifty but clearly the Irons would sooner have had the 21 year old training at Rush Green rather than travelling with England and – even if only marginally – increasing the possibility of injury should he play a part in the games.
He has barely done any training at all and has only recovered from the injury over the last few hours so it will come as no surprise should he be excluded from the England manager’s squad.
If Rice doesn’t withdraw from the England squad, I think its reasonable to assume he’s on his way, and the club are selling us a pig in a poke suggesting he’s injured. Rings of a player being protected before a big money transfer goes through.