Declan Rice says West Ham’s dressing room was left “numb” by last week’s chastening defeat to Newcastle, but believes a return to their counter-attacking ways of old could be the key to the Hammers’ survival chances.
The Hammers were humiliated 5-1 by the Champions League-chasing Magpies at the London Stadium on Wednesday night, but bounced back with a vital 1-0 victory over Fulham at Craven Cottage this weekend.
Following on from last Sunday’s win against Southampton by the same scoreline, David Moyes’ side have taken six points from three games in the space of seven days and climbed to 13th in the Premier League table to at least temporarily ease relegation fears heading into this week’s Europa Conference League quarter-final against Gent.
Rice hailed his team-mates’ response to the Newcastle defeat, which came after Moyes made five changes to his lineup, including recalling experienced defenders Angelo Ogbonna, Aaron Cresswell and Vladimir Coufal, and switched to a 4-4-2 formation.
“The manager came in [after the Newcastle game] and it was really quiet, everyone was numb, hurt,” Rice said. “In fairness, the manager came in and said: ‘I hope you’re all ready to play Saturday. If I was you, I’d be wanting to go and play tomorrow’. That’s my mentality, too, and I know it is for a load of the others.
“The beauty of football is that you always get another game to prove your worth and after that defeat, we knew how big today was. To win that today, fair play to the manager because there was a lot of pressure on him, a lot of pressure on us. It was a big win.”
Moyes’ team selection at Craven Cottage saw him name an XI without any of last summer’s eight signings, with January arrival Danny Ings the only player not involved in last season’s successful campaign, when West Ham finished seventh and reached the Europa League semi-finals.
The £170million spree that followed was designed to see the Irons kick on and signings like that of Brazil midfielder Lucas Paqueta came with the aim of transforming the club’s style of play.
However, on Saturday, Moyes’s side delivered a performance that more closely resembled the West Ham of old and the scoreline could have been more comfortable had they taken any of several late chances on the break.
“If you look at the last two years we probably played counter-attacking football,” Rice added. “So, that today probably was us of the last two years in terms of sitting in strong, being compact and hard to beat, and then catching teams on the counter-attack.
“That’s why we did so well in Europe, did so well in the Premier League. We probably played a bit better with the ball in those days and could have been a bit better with the ball today but I think that suits us most, when we counter-attack teams, with the likes of Benrahma, Antonio, Bowen.
“When we can get past that press and we’re out, I think we look frightening going forward.”
The club’s hierarchy held firm in their backing of Moyes in the immediate aftermath of the Newcastle debacle, but the 59-year-old found himself again under considerable pressure heading into the game against Fulham.
At full-time, Rice suggested the Hammers’ knack for winning in similar circumstances this term “shows everyone what we think about David Moyes”, but insisted the result was just as important for the players as the manager.
“No one wants to be playing in the Championship, no one wants to be going down, especially with the squad we’ve got,” he said. “We’ve slipped below our standards this year. There’ve been so many games where we’ve been leading and we’ve lost, so many games where we should’ve picked up a point and we’ve somehow come away losing.
“We’ve put ourselves in a bad situation but now we know the importance of getting out of it, we’ve known that since we’ve been in this seven or eight team mix. To win and to do it for each other, the club, the staff, everyone involved, it’s just so big today.”
