A cruel lesson but you don’t know Declan Rice if you think he won’t come back stronger from this.
The youngster has enjoyed a stunning breakthrough season with West Ham this year. The 19-year-old London born defender, who qualifies to play for Ireland through his Cork grandparents has been a rock at the heart of the Hammers defence for the second half of this Premier League season.
With 14 starts and 7 substitute appearances to his name, he has picked up a wealth of experience and his stock has risen accordingly.
The most impressive thing about him, however, has been his leadership qualities. Despite his young age, Rice takes the initiative when it matters for his side. He stands up and is counted as we’ve seen earlier this year when he didn’t give Harry Kane a sniff of it against Spurs.
Rice is held in high regard here in Ireland, and he’s the type of player that we can aim to build our team around over the next few years.
All good players have bad days, however. All good players make mistakes. That comes with the territory of being in a game where decisions have to be made in split seconds.
The best players have made mistakes and they’ve moved on. They learn from it and come back stronger. Rice has all the credentials to come back stronger from this. Bouncebackability is the ingredient that separates the good players from the rest.
On Sunday against Arsenal, Rice made a mistake. A costly mistake and one that will leave him tossing and turning tonight.
With the clock ticking towards ninety and West Ham on course to taking a valuable point from the Emirates Stadium that would have been crucial in their battle of avoiding relegation, Rice made a crucial headed clearance from a dangerous looking Arsenal cross.
This was the type of contribution he’d been making all day, and has been making all season.
The ball bounced into the path of Aaron Ramsey down Arsenal’s left flank.
As can be seen here, Rice had his eyes on his man as Ramsey steadied himself to cross the ball in. This uneasiness might explain the rash decision that follows.
Ramsey whipped it in.
Rice, after some miscommunication with his ‘keeper Joe Hart opted to duck under the ball instead of clearing it with his head, presumably thinking that Hart had it covered.
It ended up going straight into the back of the net.
As much as we would love to blame Joe Hart, the blame did look to lie at Rice’s door here. His ‘keeper could be heard shouting ‘away’ as the ball came in, and he communicated this with Rice after the ball had crossed the line.
Martin Tyler, in the Sky Sports commentary box, claimed Rice had committed one of the Cardinal sins of football.
“He’s a youngster, Declan Rice, with so much ability and promise, but, that might just have cost his side a point here.
“If in doubt, clear your lines, that’s the number one rule of defending, and he ignores that. It’s a cruel lesson for the youngster, that.”
Craig Bellamy feels he’ll learn from it.
“Do you know what? He’s done very well this season, he won’t do that again. He’s learning.”
His response to the mistake, meeting it head on backs that up.
I'm young.. I'll make mistakes.. it's all a leaning process to get to the top. thank you too the fans again who were brilliant❤⚒ ready to bounce back next week.
— Declan Rice (@_DeclanRice) April 22, 2018
