Daily WHUFC News - 24th April 2018

Ogbonna: Declan Rice will bounce back
WHUFC.com

Angelo Ogbonna has backed Declan Rice to bounce back strongly following Sunday's 4-1 defeat at Arsenal. 19-year-old Rice featured for the 21st time in the Premier League this season as the Hammers went down to their Emirates Stadium defeat and Ogbonna was quick to highlight the progress he has made, despite the misunderstanding which led to the Gunners' second goal. West Ham gave a good account of themselves for the vast majority of the contest in north London and looked set to take a positive result home when Marko Arnautovic levelled in the second period, so Ogbonna says there is reason to take heart ahead of the final four games of the season. "4-1 in the end was a bit unfair," the defender said. "We played well, we went to Arsenal and for 80 minutes we showed ourselves well. "Dec has played for a long time this season and every time he's played well. He's a confident boy, and it's just a misunderstanding and I'm sorry for him. "But we are positive and focused on the next game."

The Hammers face another tough assignment this weekend when they welcome Premier League champions Manchester City to London Stadium, but Ogbonna is looking forward to the test as the Hammers search for the points which would secure their safety. He added: "We have improved a lot. We took five points from the three games before this one and we were confident with the ball on Sunday and we maintained the tempo. "What we have to learn about is not switching off when we concede a goal, because in football you can make a mistake – that's football – but we have to be tough enough to get back, like we did at 1-0, but not after 2-1. "We are always confident and we are focused on our goal. Our goal is to be safe, so we are still lucky that we are six points above [the relegation zone], but we cannot relax. We have to be focused."

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Makasi's loan spell ended as he undergoes knee surgery
WHUFC.com

Moses Makasi's successful loan spell at League One promotion-chasers Plymouth Argyle came to an end last week, when he returned to West Ham to undergo surgery to his right knee. The midfielder made seven appearances for the Pilgrims, helping Derek Adams' side climb into the Play-Off places. However, defeat at Northampton Town on Saturday means they now sit three points behind sixth-place Scunthorpe United, albeit with a game in hand on the Lincolnshire club.

Robert Snodgrass was an unused substitute for Aston Villa as Steve Bruce's side thumped Ipswich Town 4-0 at Portman Road to keep alive their slim hopes of winning automatic promotion to the Premier League. The Villans remain fourth in the table, four points adrift of second-place Fulham with two matches left to play, the first of which is at home to Derby County on Saturday.

Martin Samuelsen was also left on the bench as Burton Albion boosted their survival hopes with a dramatic 2-1 victory at Sunderland, who were relegated following their defeat at the Stadium of Light. Burton's win pulled them to within two points of Reece Burke's Bolton Wanderers, who were thrashed 4-0 at home by champions Wolverhampton Wanderers. However, like Snodgrass and Samuelsen, Burke was an unused substitute at the Macron Stadium.
Burton host Bolton in a potentially pivotal fixture at the Pirelli Stadium this coming Saturday afternoon.

Reece Oxford's absence from the Borussia Monchengladbach continued on Friday, when injury ruled him out of the German club's 3-0 Bundesliga victory over Wolfsburg.

And finally, Toni Martinez was suspended and missed Real Valladolid's 2-1 Spanish Second Division victory at Real Oviedo on Friday evening. However, the striker is expected to return to the starting XI with fellow forwards Jaime Mata and Chris Ramos ruled out for the home game with Cadiz this coming Saturday afternoon.

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Wear your colours for Bobby Moore
WHUFC.com

It is back – the day when you can wear your football shirt with pride whilst raising money for the Bobby Moore Fund, supporting vital life-saving bowel cancer research. Friday 27 April is Football Shirt Friday. A day for men, women and children everywhere to wear their football shirts, donate £5 and make Bobby proud.
Football Shirt Friday is inspired by one of the most iconic images of Bobby, taken at the 1970 FIFA World Cup, where he swapped football shirts with Brazilian legend Pelé. Shown as a sign of respect between the two opposing players, this is a gesture that has been recreated worldwide by footballers ever since. Since Football Shirt Friday began six years ago, thousands of fans have accepted their call up to the Bobby Moore Fund Squad and wore their shirts loudly and proudly. Join them this year and together we will beat bowel cancer sooner. Whether it's to work on Football Shirt Friday or down the pub on the Friday night, we want you to bring your friends and colleagues together to be part of a team of thousands that are going together to help save lives. Many well-known faces from the sport and entertainment industry, including West Ham-supporting comedian Tom Davis, are among those honouring Bobby's memory, 25 years after he passed away from bowel cancer.

Former England goalkeeper David Seaman said: "Football Shirt Friday is a campaign that's close to my heart and is so important in raising vital funds to beat bowel cancer sooner. Bobby was a true hero and a real inspiration to many, so whatever you're doing on Friday 27 April, make sure you're wearing your football shirt." Football pundit and ex-England striker Alan Shearer added: "Bobby was an incredible individual who was taken too soon. His memory serves as a reminder of why it's so important to get involved in fundraising initiatives like Football Shirt Friday. So get your shirt on and donate £5 to life-saving research."

Bobby's widow Stephanie Moore MBE, set up the Bobby Moore Fund in partnership with Cancer Research UK in 1993. This year the fund aims to mark the 25th anniversary of Bobby's passing by reaching a target of £25m raised towards ground-breaking bowel cancer research. She said: "We want to see the whole nation supporting Football Shirt Friday, by proudly wearing their team's colours and joining together in the fight against bowel cancer. It's 25 years since Bobby died and in that time mortality rates for bowel cancer have fallen by more than 30 per cent, but sadly it still kills 44 people in the UK every day. "By uniting with friends and colleagues to fundraise for the Bobby Moore Fund, we can make even more progress and bring forward the day when bowel cancer is cured."

Every step towards beating bowel cancer is a result of the supporters like you stepping up to the challenge. Our only opposition is bowel cancer, so no matter your football shirt colours, get your team together on Friday 27 April and make Bobby proud. Join the conversation and share photos of you and your friends in your shirt on Twitter using @BobbyMooreFund #FootballShirtFriday or on the Facebook page at OfficialBobbyMooreFund. Simply wear a football shirt, text BOBBY to 70200 to donate £5 and be part of something amazing.

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West Ham United Ladies back FA Girls' Football Week
WHUFC.com

West Ham United Ladies are getting behind the Football Association's Girls' Football Week as the Hammers do their bit to get as many girls as possible playing the game.

The FA's Girls' Football Week runs from Monday 23 April to Sunday 29 April and is a national campaign designed to raise participation in female football – which offers girls a great opportunity to get active, meet new friends and have fun.

Alongside the Club's successful senior team – who have lifted two prestigious trophies recent weeks – the Hammers run an extensive Academy for girls, giving youngsters the chance to play in the famous Claret and Blue.

If you're a girl aged 5-11 and you want to get involved in football, make sure you head to the West Ham United Foundation in Beckton between 4.30pm-5.30pm on Wednesday for the launch of our SSE Wildcats club. Click here for more information on the SSE Wildcats scheme.

Alongside our Player Development Centres and Academy, the Club has a clear pathway for youngsters to flourish.

We will be celebrating Girls' Football Week across the next seven days on whufc.com and our social media channels, so keep an eye out for a host of exclusive content, including a behind the scenes look at the Hammers' WPL Plate final win over Luton, the winner of the Ladies' Players Player of the Year and more.

The Ladies will also be hosting Lewes in their penultimate FA Women's Premier League Southern Division fixture of the season at Rush Green on Sunday (2pm kick-off).

Admission is free for Hammers Season Ticket Holders, Claret Members and all under-16s. Otherwise, tickets are available on the gate, priced at £2 for adults.

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Leave the kid alone
KUMb.com
Filed: Monday, 23rd April 2018
By: Staff Writer

David Moyes has been told to "shut it" by Hammers fans after he laid into Declan Rice following yesterday's 4-1 defeat at Arsenal. The 19-year-old rookie, who has featured extensively in the first team since West Ham sold established central defender Jose Fonte to Chinese Super League side Dalian Yifang and lost Winston Reid to injury was hung out to dry by an angry Moyes following Sunday afternoon's capitulation. However the decision to criticise the young Irish international seems to have backfired on Moyes, who has since been slammed by supporters for his stance. "To take a shot at Rice like that was bad darts," wrote KUMB member Graza. "A proper manager would say we were in it for 80 minutes, the young lad has a lot to learn and he's made a simple but costly mistake."

And disappointment with Moyes' comments was echoed across social media. "Just seen David Moyes threw Declan Rice under the bus over his mistake yesterday saying 'he needs to learn quickly'," wrote Shane Flynn on twitter. "Using a 19-year-old defender as a scapegoat for West Ham's sperformance yesterday is a bit harsh considering he's one of the few good players at the club."

Thoughts echoed by Gabriel Cancello, who added: "Moyes digging out Rice is like shouting at the dog because he didn't do the washing up while you were out. It makes no sense, doesn't do either party any good and ultimately you're the one that ends up looking foolish."

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GUNNED BACK TO EARTH - AND RICE IS HUMAN AFTER ALL
By HamburgHammer 23 Apr 2018 at 08:00
WTID

If you wanna blame anyone for the defeat against Arsenal, just blame me. Usually I watch our games live whenever I can – this Sunday though I deliberately opted against that routine and decided to put the lovely weather in Hamburg to good use and take my brother and ten year old nephew out between the dikes on the southeastern outskirts of town to watch Concordia's U23s wallop the poor local side by a 10:0 scoreline.

The game was more noteworthy for my little nephew entertaining the travelling away support of about 20 people with his comments, questions and jocular remarks, some of them were hilarious without my nephew even realising, but that's always the joy when taking a kid to a football game.
For instance, the Concordia president was there too in order to watch his own son play, sitting three metres away from us, but that didn't stop my nephew exclaiming how the U23s were playing so much better this season compared to Cordi's first team. Well, he was right of course and the club president saw the funny side of it too and couldn't suppress a grin.

My nephew by the way still is at odds with the rules of the game in terms of the ref awarding a penalty.
Little Daniel still thinks a penalty kick should happen every time a particularly nasty foul or tackle happens, regardless of where on the pitch said foul has been committed.
FIFA better watch out, There's a new FIFA president in the making here…:-))

Anyway, it's nice to watch a team that plays football the right way (albeit against inferior opposition) and it's also nice to have a promotion celebration to look forward to – I reckon next weekend Cordi's U23s will be mathematically certain to go up. For every other club I hold an interest in it is still squeaky bum time.
Both Hamburg clubs are in relegation dogfights and even our beloved West Ham ain't quite out of the woods either.

When returning home I had managed not to hear or read anything about our game, so I could then settle down in my armchair, waving my screwdriver in tune to Bubbles being sung by the travelling Hammers and to be fair, I saw a highly entertaining match from both teams and up to the 80th minute I was fairly certain we could come away from Arsenal with a credible draw. Not so fast my not quite so young Hammer!

That second Arsenal goal broke our collective spirit and determination. Young Declan Rice who was quite superb again up to that point decided to duck out of what looked like the easiest of clearances in front of his own goal, leaving it to Joe Hart to watch the ball trundling into the net.
Lack of communication there and totally unnecessary. When the ball is that close to your own goal you need to deal with it somehow.

You either have set up a routine in training how to act in those situations. Or you make yourself heard loud and clear, so both goalkeeper and defender are on the same page.
It's frustrating to have lost the game in that fashion (I didn't even register the goals that still followed) because I think we saw a very decent overall performance from the lads.
Unfortunately a game doesn't last 79 minutes and when you shoot yourself in the foot like our team did you cannot expect to get away with it in the Premier League.

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I ain't going to tear into Rice, he is young, still learning the game and boy, will he learn from that blunder! In my eyes he is a future West Ham captain, a player well worth building a team around (if we can keep him that long that is) and the kind of guy fans love rooting for. Rice is the player we must hang on to and keep happy at all costs.
I wonder how Rice's future is going to pan out.

Moyes though is another safety-first manager for me. Defensive minded, very cautious, averse to taking a bit of a risk. There isn't much that pains me more than to see our striker isolated upfront time and time again, be that Arnautovic or Carroll. You can see the frustration when they look up, from a promising attacking position, trying to locate their nearest teammate only to find him twenty or thirty metres behind. If it was up to me, I'd look for a more attack-minded, a more positive manager.

With the shortened transfer period this summer our club should be busy building our squad for next season already. Not knowing our league status for sure yet doesn't help obviously. Not knowing who our manager will be doesn't help either. I'm sure a decision will be made in due course one way or another and we know the board will have their own priorities which may differ from what the fans, the players or even the pundits may want. So all we can do is wait and hope.

Not long to go until I'm over again for the Everton fixture. I am confident we won't necessarily need the points at that stage. But I'd be very happy to see another of my now customary 1:0 home wins. COYI!!!

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Dunphy: Rice should stay off Twitter and keep quiet
Updated / Monday, 23 Apr 2018 21:19 2
Rte.ie

Eamon Dunphy has said Declan Rice should get off Twitter and keep quiet after the weekend mistake that drew the anger of West Ham manager David Moyes.
On Sunday the Hammers looked like they were going to earn a point away to Arsenal in the Premier League when Republic of Ireland international Rice made a costly defensive error. With less than ten minutes remaining he failed to attack a cross that led directly to an Aaron Ramsey goal and sent the Gunners on their way to a 4-1 win. After the game Moyes publicly criticised Rice, who could still declare for England, the country of his birth, as he has yet to play a competitive game for Ireland. Rice tweeted that he he's young, is bound to make mistakes and will learn from them, which left RTÉ soccer pundit Dunphy unimpressed. "It was very unlike David Moyes – he's not really like that and I can't remember him publicly criticising a player before," he said, speaking to RTÉ Sport. "Certainly, Declan Rice should get off Twitter because anything that goes on between himself and his coach should stay within the dressing room – you don't need to go public like he did.
"He's a very good, young player. Young players make mistakes and you have to put your hand up sometimes. David Moyes is a good guy, he's not some fool, and he was clearly angry. "He shouldn't have had a go at the kid, but the kid should keep quiet and get on with his work. It's one mistake, he'll learn. "If you're on Twitter answering your coach, then you're on the wrong side of where you should be. If Moyes has a problem with his attitude, then there's probably something wrong with his attitude."

Declan Rice
✔
@_DeclanRice
I'm young.. I'll make mistakes.. it's all a leaning process to get to the top. thank you too the fans again who were brilliant❤⚒ ready to bounce back next week.
6:38 PM - Apr 22, 2018
13.7K

After the game, which saw West Ham remain in 15th place, six points above the relegation zone, Moyes said: "Up until 81 minutes we looked worthy of a point. "Had moments in the first half, but a young player makes a poor mistake for the second goal. He's got big potential but it really flattened the team. "The last thing you do is let the ball go. To be fair we had done most things really well defensively. He has to show it won't happen again and he will have to step up."

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