Declan Rice admits West Ham United struggled to cope with Harvey Barnes and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall during Sunday’s 2-2 Premier League draw with Leicester City, speaking to the club’s official website.
When David Moyes removed Vladimir Coufal from the firing line midway through the second half at the King Power Stadium, it felt like less a tactical switch and more an act of charity.
The usually-reliable right-back was given the run-around by an electrifying Barnes performance, gasping for breath and pleading for mercy.
Coufal was left choking on the winger’s dust in the build-up to Ricardo Pereira’s 57th minute header, set up by a pinpoint Barnes cross.
“In the first half, we were so compact in the middle,” sighs Rice, who was outplayed for much of Sunday afternoon by another homegrown, academy-graduate midfielder who is quickly becoming undroppable as far as Brendan Rodgers is concerned.
“Dewsbury-Hall really started to pick the ball up in the second half, in that little space he occupied behind me on the right-hand side. And Harvey Barnes was flying on the left, which we’d nullified in the first half.
“This is football. Things can happen. It goes round and round. We really stopped them [in the first half]. They were getting really frustrated and the fans were getting on top of them. I just wish we could’ve made a bit more of the chances that we got.”
Did West Ham deserve a point at Leicester City?
It was a game bookended by a pair of West Ham goals.
An early opener by the in-form Bowen and then a last-gasp equaliser, bundled in by Craig Dawson’s shoulder as Leicester once again succumbed to their Achilles heel.
No team in the division has conceded as many goals this season from set pieces as Leicester City (13, WhoScored).
“We’ve been working really hard on our set-pieces and Daws is incredible in the air,” adds Rice. “It was a good point in the end.
“In my opinion, we could have been two or three up in the first half. The game would have looked very different. The penalty (scored by Youri Tielemans just before the interval) swings in their favour. And then it’s a game of two halves.
“To get the equaliser at the end was a big point for us. Considering where we are in the table and where we want to get to.”
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