- West Ham PL2 captain Declan Rice was delighted with his side’s 3-1 win against Newcastle United
- The side now have two wins from two, following their opening match victory at Stoke
- The youngsters take on Swansea City later this week and must back up Monday’s result, says Rice
West Ham United Premier League 2’s victory over Newcastle United showed the hard work completed in pre-season is paying off, according to skipper Declan Rice.
The Hammers were 3-1 winners against their north east opponents on Monday night, their second win in as many Premier League 2 matches after an opening day victory over Stoke City.
And Rice, who was superb in the centre of defence for Terry Westley’s young side, was delighted to perform so well at the Chigwell Construction Stadium.
“In pre-season, you have to work to your hardest, because you know the season is going to be a long and hard season,” he said. “Even in training, you need to put 100 per cent in every day.
“Obviously we beat Stoke last week and this week we’ve beaten Newcastle 3-1 and they had a very good side. They had a good striker, Adam Armstrong, who had a little bit of threat but we dealt with him well.
“It’s good to get six points from two games and on we go to Swansea on Friday.”
The Hammers dominated the opening period, not allowing the Magpies to get a foothold in the clash, and went 2-0 up after 36 minutes through Toni Martinez and Marcus Browne.
Martinez added a third in the second half, but it was the first 45’s showing that most impressed Rice.
“I’ve never seen us play as well as we did [in the first half]. We were moving it one and two touch, the midfielders were getting on it, switching the play, there were little link-ups and it was good to see.
“Terry said at half time we need to keep going now, we can’t just stop, the game isn’t over yet, and second half we did very well. Tonight, in the last ten, the fitness levels showed, and we managed to pull through.
“I think we need to back up this performance tonight definitely. There is no point us winning tonight but then going to Swansea and losing, so we need to go there and get three wins from three.”