David Moyes has spoken on just how brilliant of a player and person Declan Rice was during his time at West Ham.
In the 18 month span between David Moyes’ first and second stint at West Ham, not too much had changed. Both times he had come in the Hammers had been in a relegation scrap and both times he turned it around. However, there was one thing that had changed drastically and that was Declan Rice.
The academy graduate had not only gone from being a central-defender to a holding midfielder but he had also developed into one of the best talents in his position.
Moyes was lucky enough to have him during his best years in claret and blue, in which he was pivotal to their European glory.
While the Hammers did get a massive £100 million for him, the Scotsman believes it was well short of what he was actually worth. “We knew for two years that he was going,” Moyes told the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast. “We actually did pretty well to keep him as long as we did.”
“Declan was the best I’ve ever seen! He was leaving the club, supporters knew that and they wished him well. Declan would give his time to the kids if they wanted an autograph, he would go and talk to people. He had no shame in going to the West Ham supporters [after he left], which is not an easy crowd to go to. He treated them brilliantly, but they treated him great as well.”
“Dec was a huge role model to many of the young players at West Ham because of the way he conducted himself. He’s got a great personality.”
“The only thing I would say is that I think it was £50 million too short, he should have been £150 million, it shouldn’t have been £100 million.”
This really is high praise from the man that brought through Wayne Rooney at Everton and it just goes to show how good Rice was for the Irons.
Understandably, not everyone’s happy with the fact he moved to a London rival, but there’s no knocking him as a person or a player. To this day he remains brilliant whenever it comes to his former club and it’s clear he still has so much love for the Hammers.
