Steven Gerrard and Joe Cole react to West Ham United ace Declan Rice ‘criticism’, compare him to legendary Claude Makelele
Steven Gerrard and Joe Cole have heaped praise on West Ham star Declan Rice and labelled him a “specialist” in midfield after his displays for England this week.
The Hammers ace scored and turned in an “amazing” display for the Three Lions in their win over Italy on Thursday (23 March), before following it up with another strong showing in the win over Ukraine on Sunday (26 March).
Before that win at Wembley though, Gerrard and Cole praised the 24-year-old live onChannel 4 (26 March, 16:49) for the way he had responded to recent criticism about a lack of goals and assists and offered up a defence for his lack of numbers.
“It was a fantastic display,” Gerrard said.
“He’s had a little bit of criticism of late, certain people have questioned certain things that he does. He’s a specialist in there. He’s a holding midfielder who has got great legs, great energy in there. He can burst forward, he can see a pass, he can get on a scoresheet.
“It was the perfect way to answer any criticism. To go to Italy away, in a really tough game, be man of the match, be dominant and help your team get over the line which he did.”
Cole agreed, and compared the 24-year-old to legendary ex-Chelsea midfielder Claude Makelele.
“Going back to Declan and the criticism he’s got, Stevie’s right,” he said.
“He is a specialist in there. I played with Claude Makelele and he never scored, never assisted, but he’s still one of the best midfielders I ever played with because he played a role.
“Now Dec plays a role. Any other country in world football, he starts for them. He’s that good. He’s a fantastic player.”
Specialist
It seems very interesting that everyone can see just how good Rice is as a holding midfielder, and yet David Moyes continues to play him with more freedom.
That’s not to say that Rice isn’t good enough to play further forward with the right partner alongside him, but at West Ham he doesn’t have that and should be played with the intention of stopping the opposition.
Going forward we have the likes of Lucas Paqueta, Manuel Lanzini and even Tomas Soucek who is better in that role, but because of Rice’s quality the manager seems to prefer getting the maximum out of him instead of the best job for the team.
With relegation looming large as the team sits in the relegation zone right now, there is every chance that Moyes will have to abandon his plan of giving Rice more freedom to get results, and it would help us massively.
Rice is world class and it’s going to be horrible when he goes, but until he does we need him to do the best for the team and that means sitting deep and controlling the opposition without the ball.