Declan Rice has hit out at what he feels in unfair media criticism of the England football team.
The West Ham captain has started every game of England's World Cup campaign and played the full 90 minutes last night as Gareth Southgate's side booked their place in the last eight of the competition.
Despite picking up three wins and a draw from their four games, there has been criticism of England's performances in some quarters. The 0-0 draw with the USA on matchday two is where most of the criticism has come from, with even some English fans in the stadium booing their team at the full time whistle.
READ MORE: Why has Raheem Sterling left England's World Cup camp?
Despite this, Rice feels that the team has been given a hard time by the media. In a post match media briefing after England's 3-0 win over Senegal, Rice defended his 'faultless' teammates and took aim at the 'negative' media coverage.
“I don’t think we get the credit we deserve in our performances,” said the West Ham United captain.
“I think if you look at other teams, like Holland and Argentina, they win their games comfortably and they get called masterclasses.
“With us, it always gets picked off. The negative things always come that way. If you look at the last couple of games, it’s been faultless.
“I think countries, like I said the other day, should be starting to fear us now because we’re a great team.
“We’re silencing the critics. Going into the tournament, there was a lot of talk that we don’t score enough goals.
“That’s another one we’ve kept people quiet on. There was a lot of scrutiny around the defence and conceding goals, but it’s been solid. We’re going to keep building and pushing.”
France will be a much different test for England on Saturday. But despite Kylian Mbappe in the form of his life and leading the World Cup golden boot race, Rice insists there are weaknesses in the French team that can be exploited.
“There’s no point buzzing about tonight if we can’t push on and beat France,” he said.
“Against the big teams, there has always been a lot of talk on us using the ball. I think in this tournament we’ve pretty much controlled every game.
“We’ve had a fair share of possession, we’ve moved it really well. The opening stages have been really shaky because teams are really trying to stop us playing.
“But once we get that goal, they have to change. It opens up and then you really start to see us play.
“Against France, we’ve seen some weaknesses in them that we can try to exploit. It’s set up for a great game.”
“These are the games we want to play in. They only come round once: England vs France, quarter-final, it doesn’t get bigger than that.
“We’ve got six days to prepare now and I’m sure the world will be watching. We really want to progress.”
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