Newcastle United were recently linked with an interest in West Ham’s Declan Rice as it looks like he may finally leave the Hammers in the summer. His England performance last night will have done nothing to hurt his valuation.
West Ham have often said that they’d only listen to offers that broke the £100million barrier, even allegedly turning down a bid from Manchester United in the summer.
As part of Gareth Southgate‘s Three Lions, Declan Rice lined up against Italy in Naples last night, hoping to put an end to a 62-year winless run in Italy, and it was the defensive midfielder who opened the scoring on 13 minutes before going on to be one of the stars of the game, recognised alongside Jude Bellingham for his performance by The Guardian.
Rice got England off to a flier with his 13th minute goal
England won a corner following an absolutely fizzing strike by the excellent Jude Bellingham. The corner eventually fell to Harry Kane whose shot was blocked but only went as far as Declan Rice who unleashed a fierce shot into the goal, almost immediately adding another £5million to his asking price.
England went in at half-time with a two goal lead thanks to Harry Kane‘s penalty conversion following a hand-ball. That was Kane’s 54th England goal taking him above Wayne Rooney to the top of the all-time England scoring charts.
It should have been 3-0 at the break but Jack Grealish somehow missed a sitter on the stroke of half time.
The second half was all Italy, though and the hosts came back into the game with a debut goal from Argentina-born Mateo Retegui.
Rice continued to have a great game, coming in clutch at the other end of the pitch stopping a Nicolo Barella-led attack.
As the referee got a bit card-happy as the game went on, Rice found himself in the book for time wasting as did several of his teammates, one of which, Luke Shaw, saw a second yellow card brandished a mere 54 seconds after his first, resulting in England going down to 10-men for the final 15 minutes of the game.
Competition for Rice’s signature will be fierce
While Newcastle’s interest in Declan Rice seems to be purely media-led at this point, should the Magpies qualify for the Champions League, an approach for Rice would certainly not be the worst idea.
With his defensive midfield mindset, he would enable Bruno Guimaraes to get further up the pitch to support the Newcastle attack. His Premier League, European and International experience make him an exciting prospect, but given how highly regarded he is, it would be a difficult one for the Magpies to pull off, and last night’s performance for England just made it that bit harder.
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