Ruud Gullit: Declan Rice playing for West Ham United is a problem for England
Ruud Gullit believes England would be a better team if Declan Rice was playing for a bigger club than West Ham United away from international duty.
Rice started every match for the Three Lions in Qatar as Gareth Southgate’s side reached the quarter-finals before crashing out to France.
The 23-year-old was one of the standout players for England, but Gullit believes the team would benefit from more players joining top clubs in the Premier League.
Via the Daily Express, Gullit said: “England has been prematurely eliminated at this tournament despite a wonderful performance against France. They really played well but again they could not survive.
“With the Premier League, England has the most beautiful and biggest league in the world, but the five biggest clubs do not have English internationals playing in the most crucial positions.
“That is killing the national team — there should be England players there, as they then get used to winning big trophies all the time. You win more with the bigger clubs.”
The report adds: “The Dutchman singled out five players who summed up the problem with Pickford, Maguire, Stones, Rice and Kane all either not playing at high enough levels or playing frequently enough.”
Nonsense
While at West Ham, Rice has been part of England teams that have reached the final of the European Championships and the quarter-finals of the World Cup. Not bad for a West Ham player.
To suggest that Rice has to play for one of the ‘five biggest clubs’ in the league to progress as a nation is simply not true.
If anything, Southgate has improved results with the national team by picking players on form rather than the club they play for. Players like Rice and Jordan Pickford – who were both mentioned by Gullit – have been some of England’s best performers in the last two international tournaments.
Limiting England’s selection pool to just the top five or six clubs hinders the national team considerably and only encourages players to jump ship and move rather than staying loyal to the clubs that gave them an opportunity.
Rice does look as though he wants to move on from West Ham in the summer, but it’s hardly because he’s struggling for a spot in the national setup.