Simon Jordan tells West Ham United captain Declan Rice to stop ‘flapping his gums’
Simon Jordan ripped into West Ham captain Declan Rice after his latest outburst on social media against a referee after their defeat to Chelsea.
The Hammers were denied a late equaliser at Stamford Bridge after VAR ludicrously overturned a Maxwel Cornet goal, which led to Rice taking to Twitter to label the decision as “one of the worst” he’d seen.
But after getting a three-game European ban for an outburst last season after West Ham’s Europa League exit, Jordan launched into a rant live on talkSPORT [5 September] to tell him to learn from the past and be quiet.
“He hasn’t learnt his lesson has he?” he said. “I mean it’s one thing speaking.. he just got himself sanctioned recently for flapping his gums about a referee.
“I would’ve thought.. there’s an element of, he’ll appeal to the masses and the’ll go, ‘well done Declan for saying it,’ but you know, keep your counsel.
“Decisions are made, you make plenty of bad ones. He got sanctioned six months ago for calling a referee a cheat.”
Yes and no
Rice said what everyone was thinking and he deserves credit for his honesty, in a time where professional footballers are usually labelled as robots for their boring interviews and interactions.
The decision was shocking and the fact that the FA aren’t taking any further action in relation to the comments tells you that everything he said was correct.
But Jordan is somewhat correct in the sense that Rice does need to learn to bite his tongue on occasion because his Europa League outburst meant we were without him for three European games this season.
If the FA were to find that he was in the wrong and slapped him with a suspension domestically then it would cause big problems for West Ham, such is his importance to the team.
On this occasion though, it was the right time to speak out and everyone agreed with him including the FA, so Jordan can be quiet for once.