Declan Rice
Declan Rice has urged his West Ham team to improve their consistency and bring their away form back to the London Stadium. The Hammers have not lost an away match since a 3-2 defeat to Newcastle in April, but have lost four home fixtures during that spell. The England international was thrilled with the 1-0 win at Goodison Park on Sunday, but has called on his team to be more consistent as they aim to move up the Premier League table.
Declan Rice said: “If you look at the competitions we’re in, it’s game after game at the moment. We’ve got seven games in 21 days and I feel like, with that amount of fixtures coming up, we need to be consistent. If you start losing games, it becomes harder to get back up the table. With the group of players we’ve got now, and the quality of player we can bring off the bench, the squad, at the moment, is in a really good place. Long may that continue.”
West Ham have already recorded three away Premier League wins this season as well as victories against Manchester United in the Carabao Cup and Dinamo Zagreb in the Europa League and Rice has admitted the squad are enjoying life on the road.
Declan Rice added: “I think we just love away days. Our fans love coming away to watch us and as players we like travelling around and playing away at stadiums like this. We knew this [Everton] was going to be really tough. If we’d have lost, we’d have been on 11 points and in the bottom half of the table. It’s good for our mentality that if we want to keep pushing and being a better team, trying to improve this football club, we need to be up and around the top teams, so the win was so important.”
West Ham dominated possession but found opportunities hard to come by, however, Rice was delighted with the way his team bounced back from defeat to Brentford last time out.
Declan Rice said: “It was a really tough game,” Rice said. “I thought it was an excellent performance though. If you compare it to the one against Brentford before the international break, we weren’t quite at it [that day], but from the start [against Everton], we dominated the ball and passed it around lovely. In the first half, again we were getting frustrated because we didn’t put a chance in the back of the net, but then the big man [Angelo Ogbonna] heads one in and you’re defending for your life. You’re breaking up the pitch and you’re winning tackles, the final whistle goes, and it’s a really good moment.”
