{"id":8848,"date":"2025-04-10T19:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T19:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/8848\/"},"modified":"2025-04-10T19:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T19:42:10","slug":"west-ham-fans-may-feel-differently-about-declan-rice-after-truth-about-what-he-did-before-final-in-prague-emerges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/8848\/","title":{"rendered":"West Ham fans may feel differently about Declan Rice after truth about what he did before final in Prague emerges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Declan Rice left West Ham United to join Arsenal back in the summer of 2023.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The move was greeted with disdain by many West Ham<\/a> fans, who accused Declan Rice<\/a> of turning his back on the club and being a traitor, after he left to join their London rivals Arsenal.<\/p>\n

When you really look into it though, that couldn\u2019t be further from the truth.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth remembering that Rice never once demanded an exit from the London Stadium<\/a>, and he always gave his all when he wore the claret and blue shirt.<\/p>\n

Rice also captained the Hammers to a European trophy \u2013 something only one other West Ham captain has done \u2013 Bobby Moore.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto by Jose Breton\/Pics Action\/NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n

That said, the West Ham fans still enjoyed seeing Declan Rice struggling<\/a> during the 1-0 win over Arsenal at The Emirates back in February.<\/p>\n

In spite of that, it\u2019s clear to see that the Hammers still desperately miss Rice.<\/p>\n

He showed his quality on the very biggest stage on Tuesday night, after he scored two world-class free-kicks against Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

West Ham fans might change their minds on Declan Rice<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t sit right that Rice has become somewhat of a hate-figure in East London amongst certain sections of the fanbase.<\/p>\n

He deserves more than that, and should be respected for the way he handled things, rather than criticised.<\/p>\n

According to The Athletic<\/a>, Rice did something quite remarkable before the 2023 Europa Conference League final.<\/p>\n

Roshane Thomas claims that the 26-year-old Arsenal midfielder opted against doing a pre-match press conference because he knew talk surrounding his future would preclude West Ham\u2019s achievement of reaching the final.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto by Lukas Kabon\/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images<\/p>\n

That is a hugely honourable thing to do, and he really does deserve more credit for the way in which he handled his exit from the London Stadium just under two years ago.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what West Ham dressing room is like without Declan Rice<\/p>\n

Kurt Zouma captained the side after Rice\u2019s exit.<\/p>\n

And then Jarrod Bowen was handed the skipper\u2019s armband at the start of this season.<\/p>\n

It has been claimed that the West Ham dressing room has been a very quiet place since Declan Rice left<\/a> to join Arsenal.<\/p>\n

Graham Potter has to add more leaders to his ranks this summer.<\/p>\n

There is a real case to be made that the West Ham fans didn\u2019t realise just how much of a blow it was losing Declan Rice, in spite of the \u00a3105 million the club received for him.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old loved the Hammers. He just needed to move away in order to fulfil his ambitions, and that\u2019s fair enough isn\u2019t it?<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Declan Rice left West Ham United to join Arsenal back in the summer of 2023. The move was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[2920,94,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-8848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-declan-rice","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114315378379294415","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}