Declan Rice says deeper relationships with his West Ham United teammates and the coaching staff is a major benefit of this week’s training camp in Miami.
The Hammers spent five days working in Florida this week, returning to London on Saturday, and Rice believes the quality time with the rest of the squad has helped to develop stronger bonds between them
The more time you spend together, the more you get to know each other. It's been really good, getting to spend time together as a team.
Declan Rice
“I think the more time you spend together, the more you get to know each other,” Rice told whufc.com. “There might be some people that you don’t really speak to at the training ground. You can be here and speak to them and get to know more about them.
“It’s the same with the staff as well. You don’t really get to sit down with the staff. It’s been really good. To get away, with the weather out here, with the results not really going our way at the moment, getting to spend time together as a team and bringing the staff as well. It’s important that we’ve come out here and done this trip.”
It’s not just off the field that Rice can feel the positives of the mid-week training camp, with the defender likening the intensity of the sessions to those usually seen in pre-season training.
He continued: “The sessions were probably an insight into what pre-season is going to be like! We’re Premier League footballers so we’ve got to be fit as a fiddle really, and the manager, to bring us out here, we’ve got to work hard. And when we get back we’ve got to keep going.
“We’ve had four hard sessions out here, including the bike session on Monday. The manager has really worked us hard out here and with the heat out here, it’s really made an impact. We’re all feeling the benefits of it.”