Rice’s Europa League vow

Declan Rice has vowed to give absolutely everything in the Europa League second leg against Sevilla after Thursday’s defeat.

The Liga club won 1-0 in Spain, meaning that the Hammers simply need to win next week at the London Stadium to have any chance of progressing to the quarter-finals. Scoring twice will be imperative.

Sevilla have been exceptional in the Europa League for some seasons and are actually the most successful team ever to play in the competition.

The Spanish side have a great record defensively, too, and have only conceded 18 goals in La Liga this season, hence them sitting second in the table, only behind Real Madrid.

Declan, though, insists that he is ready to give absolutely everything to ensure that the Hammers find a way to turn the result around and progress to the last eight.

Speaking to the club’s official website after Thursday’s disappointing result, the England international said: “Obviously, there was disappointment to not get something from the game, but the beauty of a knockout competition is that we’ve got one leg now to make it right. 

“We’ll be going back to our stadium and giving it everything.

“We know our Stadium’s going to be rocking. We can beat anyone on our day and we’ll be ready to go and hopefully knock Sevilla out, and progress to the next round.”

 

About Dave Langton

A journalist with 10 years' experience of working on National newspapers, now chief reporter covering the club that I've loved since I was a boy. Upton Park remains the greatest football stadium ever built.