Scoring goals for West Ham United in dominant away wins - it doesn't get much better than that for Declan Rice.
The Hammers skipper notched his third goal of the season in Claret & Blue - but first in the Premier League - as his side romped to a 4-1 success at Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon.
Rice was joined on the scoresheet by Ben Johnson, Pablo Fornals and Jarrod Bowen as his team continued their fine start to the campaign - never before have they collected 20 points from their opening ten Premier League fixtures - and extend their unbeaten away league run to an eighth game.
Rice paid tribute to the team's togetherness, which continues to drive them on as they strive to hit yet greater heights than they have already scaled.
"It's a special group at the minute, a special environment. We wake up looking forward to training. Every game, we've been in it until the end. It's a special place to play and as you can see by our faces we’re over the moon.
"I can definitely add [goals] to my game, I have four this season now, one with England and three for West Ham. It doesn’t get better than the feeling of scoring a goal. I love playing away too, you are in someone else’s stadium and get the away fans who travel and come to support us, so to score and hear them erupt is really special."
West Ham scored four and deserved their win, yet so high are the standards they are setting, Rice felt they could have given even more at Villa Park on Sunday.
He added: "We won 4-1 but we were sloppy in the second half. We gave the ball away so much. The manager won’t be happy about that, I gave away a few passes.. There were times we could have countered and gave it away, but we did it in the last ten minutes and in the end it played out how it should have done.
"We are joint third. The big question people asked before the season was whether we could do it again and could we get used to playing in Europe and the Premier League. We’ve found out we can. But there are still a lot more games to go. This is the level, the standard. We can’t drop if we want to be a big team."