Declan Rice says West Ham United can really get their season up and running with a victory at Huddersfield Town on Saturday.
The Hammers head to the John Smith’s Stadium seeking back-to-back Premier League wins for the first time since January 2017, having produced a complete performance in defeating Burnley at London Stadium last weekend.
Rice was a late substitute as the Irons won 4-1 at Huddersfield last season and the teenager says a similar result this time around would give a further boost to the confidence currently coursing through Manuel Pellegrini’s squad.
That was a massive win for us last season and it would be massive for us again this season
Declan Rice
“Huddersfield haven’t had the best of starts, but they’re the home team, they won on Monday night and we’ll be going there as the away team trying to pick up the three points like we did last season,” said the No41. “That was a massive win for us last season and it would be massive for us again this season.”
Reflecting on Saturday’s 4-2 victory over Burnley, Rice felt West Ham were full value for their success, despite the fact they twice relinquished the lead to Sean Dyche’s side.
After frustrating results at Brighton & Hove Albion and Leicester City and home to Tottenham Hotspur, when the Irons scored just once from 41 goal attempts across the three matches, the 19-year-old said Saturday’s dominant performance and deserved win was just what the dressing room needed.
“I thought we controlled the game from the start and were unlucky not to score five or six goals, to be honest, with the amount of chances we created, but we scored four and conceded two,” he observed.
“We’ve needed three points for quite a while now. We should have had them last week at Leicester and, if we’d have had eleven men on the pitch it would have been a different game.
“We played well at Brighton and against Spurs, but on Saturday the main thing was we got the three points and put in a really good performance.
“It was enjoyable to play in, but it was stressful! We went 1-0 up, then they equalised on the stroke of half-time, then we went 2-1 up and thought we were on the way.
“Their game, what they’re really effective at is putting balls into the box and winning headers, and they did that to make it 2-2, so we thought ‘here we go’, then we scored another two and heaved a sigh of relief!
“Now every is buzzing because it was a massive three points.”