Declan Rice
Declan Rice felt West Ham United’s first-half performance against Brentford was up there with their best this season. After claiming prior to kick-off that his side were not in a relegation battle, West Ham captain Rice has once again reiterated that a positive mindset is needed to kick on and believes the defeat at the London Stadium on Friday night that came in a match where they played well but struggled to ‘put the ball in the back of the net.’
Declan Rice said: “As bizarre as it sounds with the result, the first half is as good as we have played this season. We passed really well, we just lacked cutting edge. They scored two goals, we couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net. It’s really frustrating, we highlighted throw-ins as a strength of theirs. They’re second one, one throw, one ball over the top, and it’s in the net. In all my time at West Ham, we haven’t conceded a goal as easy as that. Inside the changing room heads were not down at all. We just couldn’t get that extra goal. In games like this you need to score, keep applying pressure, and credit to Brentford they stopped us. This is West Ham, it’s a massive club. Where we are in the table isn’t good enough, we need to be doing better, we are letting ourselves down, our manager down and our fans down. It doesn’t feel real being in the position we are but that’s the reality. When you’re down at the bottom with the games played, people will say it’s a relegation battle. But if you have that mindset, it makes everything frantic. It’s not like that at all, everything is so positive. We’ve got to stay positive.”
