West Ham’s Declan Rice performed very well in the holding midfield role against Everton yesterday.
Hammers boss Manuel Pellegrini went with a more defensive minded midfield trio with the 19-year-old lining up alongside captain Mark Noble and Pedro Obiang at Goodison Park.
Despite being far more inexperienced than the other two central midfielders, Rice was the stand out player in the middle of the park. Irons fans were quick to praise the teenager:
Superb @_DeclanRice bossed the show
— Stiofan Mac Diarmada (@covstevehammer) 16 September 2018
Watching @BBCMOTD2 and Declan Rice easily a far better player than Eric Dier. In all areas. Easily. #thfc #spurs #whufc #hammers
— Danny Bean (@BeanieAA07) 16 September 2018
#whufc We need to replicate that performance against Chelsea and Man Utd, midfield was balanced and Rice was the dictator, excellent display by him and the team as a whole #WHUFC #EVEWHU
— Martin Johnson (@EdwardJames) 17 September 2018
Declan Rice, for the record, performed excellently in the holding role of Pellegrini's 4-3-3. After being unfairly scapegoated for West Ham's opening day loss to Liverpool, Rice did a wonderful job on Sigurdsson before Everton's switch to 4-4-2. #COYBIG #WHUFC #COYI #EVEWHU
— Alan O'Brien (@alanob2112) 16 September 2018
Finally can go to bed happy on a match day #Coyi #whufc the team were superb today. Rice looked comfortable. The two centre backs were great. Arni, anderson and yarmalenko where great today. Hope Arni was taken off for precaution
— Matt (@MatthewMills83) 16 September 2018
Steady, broke up a lot, kept his position in front of the back 4 well
— Kirt Kreutzer (@kirtk) 16 September 2018
Declan Rice is quality
— Peter Crowe (@petercrowe511) 16 September 2018
Plenty of people who'd never watched Declan Rice play football said he will never be good enough for England. The youngster has been absolutely brilliant today, so excited to watch him develop further. #COYI #WHUFC
— Richard Vaughan (@richiejv) 16 September 2018
Declan Rice been best player on the pitch today. Has to play every week ⚒⚒ #irons #whufc
— Matt Suttie (@mattwhufc19) 16 September 2018
The defender/defensive midfielder has yet to decide on whether he wants to play for England or the Republic of Ireland, and on this display, Gareth Southgate may want to contact the player to persuade him to play for the Three Lions.
For Hammers supporters, the main concern will be tying down Rice to a new contract. The youngster is currently in a stand-off with the club over an extension to his current deal which expires next summer.
The club do have an option to extend his current contract for a further year, but they will want to come to an agreement over a longer stay at the London Stadium.
