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Rice still has a lot to learn in defensive midfield
I still think that Rice is going to be a permanent fixture at West Ham for years to come, but his performance at Liverpool showed he does have stuff to learn in defensive midfield. And I back him to push through any difficulties and become a really impressive player. For me he was better than Noble, and only the fact Noble wears the captains armband stopped him getting taken off instead.
I did think it could be considered harsh bringing Rice off at halftime, but I think Pellegrini agrees with me. He knows that he won’t be able to get Noble to change the way he plays very much, if at all. However with Rice he could see that the system wasn’t containing Liverpool, and the youngster wouldn’t learn much chasing shadows. Bringing him off wasn’t harsh, but the best thing to protect the youngster from learning bad lessons.
With these 5 lessons there is an underlying theme. Pellegrini will be changing the way we played from last season, and hopefully by the end of the season it will be an unrecognisable system to the one seem last year. But for now we need to give it time and keep on supporting our team the best way possible.