Declan Rice relished his return to the London Stadium with Arsenal, despite receiving boos from West Ham fans.
Rice was instrumental in Arsenal’s dominant 5-2 victory over the Hammers on Saturday night. With a dazzling five-goal spree from Gabriel Magalhaes, Leandro Trossard, Martin Odegaard, Kai Havertz, and Bukayo Saka all within an incredible first half for the visitors, West Ham’s responses by Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Emerson Palmieri were mere consolations amidst a devastating loss under Julen Lopetegui.
The London Stadium was shrouded in gloom as frustration cascaded from the stands, with fan confrontations mirroring the chaos on the pitch. Although Rice was vilified by the crowd, his successful move to Arsenal last summer for £105million after eight years with West Ham seemed worthwhile
Post-match, Rice expressed joy on Instagram, saying: “Amazing win today! Nice to go back and see familiar faces. On to next we go.” It appears Rice’s positive sentiment isn’t shared by all, with one disgruntled West Ham fan criticising Rice’s demeanour and goal celebrations on talkSPORT.
David remarked: “Just on Declan Rice, obviously what he did for the club was brilliant but celebrating those goals today and moaning the way he does, it’s just a bit disrespectful, that’s just the way I see it.”
Rice is likely unfazed by any discontent from fans of his old club as Arsenal continues their impressive run. The Gunners have been on fire, netting five goals in consecutive away matches, including a 5-1 demolition of Sporting Clube de Portugal in the Champions League earlier this week.
After Arsenal’s latest goal fest, Mikel Arteta was told during his post-match press conference that the seven first-half goals matched a Premier League record. “I didn’t know that, it tells you how crazy it was, how efficient both teams were in front of the goal. It was a spectacular thirty minutes,” he said.
Arteta praised his team’s desire and quality, which led to three fantastic early goals, followed by a fourth. However, he acknowledged a shift in momentum after the opposition narrowed the lead to 4-2.
“Straight away how much the team wanted it, the purpose, the determination and quality that we deliver to score three great goals in different ways,” he added. “Then score the fourth one as well in a really great way as well but then after that we had a period where the individual quality of them obviously played a big part, 4-2, and then its game on and you can sense that the energy has changed and then what’s next?
“I think it was great to score the fifth one as that calmed everything down and we could play a very different game that was much more suited to us.”
