The international break sucks for many reasons, mainly because club football is gone. Now that West Ham’s Declan Rice has been getting dragged and linked away, however, it’s even worse.
Two matches for England, two wins, and two starts for Declan Rice, the new defensive midfielder for the Three Lions. Somehow this isn’t good enough for the Twitter world as Rice was criticized heavily by English football fans after not scoring goals… from a holding midfield position.
Despite the criticism, his stats speak for themselves in the most recent match against Kosovo. Rice ended the game with 92% passing accuracy, 5/6 successful longballs, four clearances, one block, three interceptions, two tackles, and 4/5 ground duels won.
3️⃣ 🦁s! @_DeclanRice pic.twitter.com/WT19wGcqBk
— West Ham United (@WestHam) September 8, 2019
Prior to Kosovo, Rice was a standout star in England’s win over Bulgaria, too. His statistical breakdown shows that he controlled the midfield and progressed England from the back out. 100 passes with 96% accuracy, one key pass, three dribbles won, 7/8 accurate long balls, three tackles won, three interceptions. Not bad.
Despite the yammering on from Spurs supporters who have seen both Eric Dier and Harry Winks sat on the bench to make way for the simply better Declan Rice, links to (traditionally) top-six teams are still popping up for West Ham’s future captain.
After a summer of Manchester City – Declan Rice rumors just passed, it appears West Ham supporters can look forward to an autumn of Rice to United rumors. Yes, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ed Woodward want to throw money at another England International, come January, to fix their team’s inefficiencies.
Two things make these rumors hilarious. One – Rice is being mentioned alongside Sean Longstaff who couldn’t lace his boots. Two – The laziness of “Rice to Manchester United” is shown off in the link being justified by the transfers of Maguire and Wan-Bissaka, other young, England internationals
As it stands right now, RIce is a West Ham player and will be for the foreseeable future. He mentioned, when talking about Mark Noble, that he could see himself staying at West Ham and chasing legend status as Noble has done in his career. If that doesn’t settle a concerned Hammer down, then I don’t know what will. Sure, Rice has the ability to play for the Manchester United’s of the world, but why would he want to play for a midtable team anyways?