Written by: George
A major talking-point on the lips of most West Ham fans in the last two years has been the rise to fruition of one of England’s most promising young players. Having received a fair bit of criticism throughout his transition from Irish green to English white and doubts over his class at the highest level, I find myself defending Declan Rice to my non-Hammer mates as frequently as any other West Ham-related matter. It’s true, I bring him up at every opportunity possible; he is, after all, a candidate for future England captain, but regular footie fans continue to downplay his performances and for those of us who watch him week-in week-out, it’s hard to understand why.
The contemporary style of football we see today has seen drastic playing-style changes in a number of positions, be it keepers playing it out from the back, ball-playing centre backs and the development of full-backs into wing-backs expected to create chances. What goes somewhat unnoticed is the style- and formational-changes that have affected the central midfield. We’ve seen Conte’s 3-4-3, Spurs’ solid 4-2-3-1 and of late, a success at the very top using a 4-3-3. All football fans will tell you how good Kevin de Bruyne is – perhaps the best centre-mid the premier league has ever seen – but would he be able to have had as much success sat behind four players as a holding midfielder in a 4-2-3-1? The point is, centre-mids get often get collated into one broad bracket of player, despite having fundamentally different styles.
Ask any Man City fan and they’ll tell you the reason why De Bruyne, David Silva and Gundogan are able to be so creative is because they have a positional rock playing behind them in Fernandinho (now Rodri). Knowing that you have the freedom to play with the ball, because if you lose it you’ve got cover, allows creative players to do just that – create. Similarly, Man United fans will get on Pogba’s back for giving the ball away or not working hard enough in defence, but this simply isn’t his role.
Fundamentally, central-midfielders need to be given a role rather than a position. Manuel Pellegrini, all West Ham fans and, most crucially, Declan Rice himself, all know what Rice’s role is. Sitting in front of a back four, breaking up play, dominating space and distributing to other players is your role, Declan. We don’t need you to score goals, create assists or unlock defences, that’s not your job. Us fans all see the Rice stats that matter to the side; tackles, interceptions, aerial battles won etc. These allow Noble, Anderson, Lanzini and Co. to do the creative work. Critics will look at Rice’s chances created, goals and assists and, fairly, question why he is so highly rated. Us fans know the real reason.
At the age of 20 he’s already got seasons of Premier League experience under his belt, he’s started competitively for England and it’s clear there’s more left to come from him. As he’s tweeted before he’ll learn from mistakes – there will inevitably be a few more- and we can be sure that his best is yet to come. It seems like years ago that the board wouldn’t give him £30,000 a week; this seems absurd now, and to some of us it was then, too. If critics would understand his role and what it brings to the team better, I’m sure he’d be seriously highly rated.
For now, though, for us West Ham fans it might be best that he stays under the radar as after Noble retires, he’s next in line to try and take us to new heights.
