Europa League progress crucial if West Ham want to keep Declan Rice

ClaretandHugh editor Hugh Southon writes on a massive night for West Ham in Seville
Standard Sport10 March 2022

Sevilla away sounds about as difficult as it gets, but it is a tie we surely have to win for one very big reason.

Victory and a place in the last-eight would be a major step towards a place in the final which, if we were to win to gain a Champions League place, would surely keep Declan Rice at the club for at least another season.

The disappointment of missing out on the domestic cups is understandable but it could perhaps be a blessing in disguise because the top six and Europa League always had to be the priority, given Declan’s situation.

He effectively has two years left on his contract at West Ham, including a one-year option, but to win the Europa League would demonstrate that we remain a club very much on an upward trajectory.

It looks a big ask in Spain tonight, with Jarrod Bowen missing, although having Declan back is a boost.

Us West Ham supporters are pretty adaptable after years of looking over our shoulders with the occasional glance upwards. But the very idea that our club, with what after all is a notably thin squad, finds itself in the last-16 of the Europa League so soon after David Moyes’s arrival brings huge hope and enormous pride.

Whichever way anyone wants to look at it, this is an incredible revolution in Claret and Blue terms, from a yo-yo club towards the bottom to a spinning top right up there in Europe’s second biggest competition.

Action Images via Reuters

To be playing in Seville in such a game as this is a thrill. And in the 57th year since we won anything in Europe — the Cup Winners’ Cup at Wembley in 1965 — these are nights that set the pulses and adrenalin racing. It’s one of those wonderful West Ham-isms that as we showed against Liverpool at theweekend, albeit in the 1-0 defeat at Anfield, we tend to turn it on in matches such as these.

And if we can get a result out there, we have to have a big chance on our own manor against a team that has drawn its last four matches away from home in La Liga.

The absence of Bowen is a concern but a draw would not surprise me as we step out on what may well be the first stage of the ‘Declan Stays’ campaign.

Come on you Irons!

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