Declan Rice reveals how ‘old school’ David Moyes trains West Ham players in pre-season
West Ham United star midfielder Declan Rice has revealed that manager David Moyes is “brutal” in pre-season training sessions.
The new season is around the corner and the Hammers will be hoping for an even improved show than the one they put on in the last campaign.
While talking to Tubes and Ange Golf Life, as quoted by the Daily Mirror print edition on August (page 51), he spoke about how the former Manchester United manager asks his players to go through tough drills to ensure that they are ready for the new season.
“It’s tough, it’s very tough, especially with Moyes,” said the 23-year-old. “He’s proper old school. He’s got the stopwatches out.
“He loves a stopwatch, hill climbs, hill runs, triple sessions, double sessions. I was away with England so I missed the first two weeks of pre-season, and speaking to a few of the lads, by all accounts it was brutal. Anything Moyes says goes. Triple session, double session, gym, you just get on with it.”
Building on success
West Ham’s season is about to begin in less than a week’s time and they couldn’t have asked for a more difficult opponent than defending champions Manchester City in the opening fixture.
This season is all about building on the success of the previous campaign where the Hammers finished seventh in the league and also qualified for the semi-finals of the UEFA Europa League.
Despite a rather disappointing end to their previous campaign where they could not cement a place in the top-six, the Irons have things under control in this transfer window as they’ve made some important additions and have also managed to keep their best player in Rice at the club for at least another season.
After the departure of two key figures in Mark Noble, who has retired from the sport and Alex Kral, who has left the club for another loan spell, the importance of the England international will be even greater this season and the West Ham fans will be hoping that the 23-year-old will continue the way he has performed over the last few season.