09 March 2024 , 22:30
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David Moyes has admitted for the first time that West Ham miss Declan Rice - and fears they may have sold him on the CHEAP.
The Hammers have racked up 10 games without a clean sheet, suffering the latest blot on their copybook in the last 10 minutes in Freiburg on Thursday night.
Although the £105million England midfielder was subjected to pantomime villain treatment when he returned to the Taxpayers Stadium with Arsenal this season, Hammers boss Moyes believes Rice’s mopping-up was a critical ingredient.
And he now wishes the Eastenders had held out for £150million last summer - because Rice has looked a more accomplished player than others who have fetched nine-figure transfer fees.
The Hammers’ last shut-out was against Brighton on January 2, and Moyes - who had always prided himself on building teams with a strong defensive core - admitted: “It’s not nice. We work hard to make sure we’re defensively sound and I genuinely believe there’s no successful team that hasn’t got the best defence.
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“Having that normally gives you a good chance of getting a result somewhere. At the moment we’re not as strong as we should be in some areas.
“We’ve hugely missed Declan Rice. I think Declan covered up a lot of things, was able to tidy things up and help us. He’s probably the best player in England at the moment, I would say.
“If you lose the best player in England out of your team, you’re going to be affected one way or the other - it doesn’t matter how good your signings have been and how well they’ve done. And by the way, a lot of things get talked about how much money we spend, but nobody talks about how much money we’ve taken in as well.
Declan Rice celebrates scoring for Arsenal vs Brentford“Brighton have taken a lot of money in, but I think we’re probably right up there with the biggest ones that take money in as well.
“I always said, and I think everyone laughed, that Dec should have been £150million. Other players have been sold for close to that price and I don’t think they’ve touched Declan’s level of performance. The other thing is Declan is English, an England international, and he’s 25 now so he’s still got another six or seven years of his best years still to come.
“So I think in time maybe we’ll look back and think it could have been more. But let’s be fair, I think most people - including the media, everybody - would have said it was a really good price for Declan at the time.”
Moyes, whose Europa Conference League champions face struggling Burnley on Sunday is keeping half an eye on the UEFA co-efficients which could offer a fifth English club a Champions League place next season. But he is still scarred by his last brief encounter with Europe’s elite at Everton 19 years ago.
He said: “Because of the coefficient, I was still thinking with a bit of luck one of the English teams might win the Champions League, and help us to get other teams through.
“Fifth can get you Champions League this year, but remember the last time that happened? I was manager at Everton and Liverpool won it. F****** hell! We ended up drawing Villarreal in the play-off, unbelievable.
“And they went on to lose to Arsenal in the semi-final, with Riquelme and all those for Villarreal. I couldn’t believe the draw. If we can nick a European spot again, it would be fabulous for us.”
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