For the second England game in succession, a West Ham United player has picked up the Player of the Match Award after Declan Rice followed in Jesse Lingard's footsteps.
Lingard collected the award following his performance against San Marino on Thursday night at Wembley, his first appearance for the Three Lions since 2019. The 28-year-old failed to get on the scoresheet despite having ten shots throughout the match, with San Marino goalkeeper Elia Benedettini in inspired form.
The West Ham loanee was a constant threat with his direct running at the backline and capped a fine evening off with an assist for Dominic Calvert-Lewin's second.
Rice did not feature in the San Marino clash but was in the starting XI for the tougher test of Albania away and his fine performance at the heart of England's midfield saw him make it a West Ham double.
The 22-year-old covered a huge amount of ground for his country and had a pass success rate of 97% from more than 100 attempted passes made throughout the game, according to stats-based website Wyscout.
The only negative on the evening for Rice was the way his teammates left him on the sidelines of their goal celebration after England skipper Harry Kane had opened the scoring in Tirana. Something the skipper later apologised to Rice for in a lighthearted tweet.
Conor Coventry, Lukasz Fabianski, Andriy Yarmolenko, Said Benrahma and Frederick Alves are yet to feature for their nations this international break but Tomas Soucek and Vladimir Coufal have excelled for the Czech Republic.
Soucek scored a perfect hat-trick for his country as part of a 6-2 victory over Estonia, a match that Coufal did not participate in. Coufal was back in the starting XI for the Czech's next match, a tough home tie against the world's number one ranked national Belgium.
Both Soucek and Coufal put in fine displays as they helped their country to an excellent 1-1 draw in Prague.
With one international game left during this period, David Moyes will be hoping for some more fine performances from his Hammers players, but more importantly no injuries and for his men to return fit and healthy ahead of the Premier League run-in.
West Ham have nine remaining league games this season and are currently just two points off the top four. With the likes of Angelo Ogbonna and Arthur Masuaku expected to return to the first-team shortly, the Hammers are currently in fine shape both physically and in the table.
