Cheap shot MOYES SAYS DEC WAS UNDER At Rice PRICED FOR £105m
Esteve is Max-ing out his potential in bid to beat drop with Clarets
BURNLEY star Maxime Esteve admits he’s had a crash course in defending in the Premier League after arriving on loan from French football.
And the highly rated 21-year-old has revealed it’s a battle every time he steps on the pitch with opponents ready to scrap for every ball.
Centre-back Esteve joined Burnley at the end of the January window on loan from Ligue One side Montpellier and has played in all five matches since.
The youngster is yet to taste victory with four straight defeats following a draw on his debut against Fulham – and he reckons it’s a whole different ball game to France.
He said: “I’ve found the game here to be more physical than back home, certainly in the one on ones, the duels.
“But I’m getting a lot of playing time, I’m very happy with that. I think now the important thing is to kick on and get some points and some victories behind us.”
As the Clarets head to West Ham today, relegation is looming for Vincent Kompany and his stars if they don’t start winning soon. Yet despite the gloomy picture, Esteve believes the mood in the dressing room is still positive.
And although life is tough at the bottom end of the table he’s enjoying the experience.
“It’s very good here,” he says. “And the settling in process has gone really well.
“For my wife, it was harder for her at the beginning settling in, but me personally I’m very pleased to be here in England.
“There’s a great collective within the dressing room. And living in Manchester as well, I’d really say we’re enjoying our life.”
Esteve knows, though, that Burnley need to start picking up points with just 10 games left after today’s trip to the London Stadium – with the odds stacked against them.
“All the matches are tough games and West Ham have a lot of international players.
“I think we’re probably in for quite a tough contest. It’s certainly going to be a test for us. But we’re going to go out there in a very positive frame of mind.”
DAVID MOYES has admitted for the first time that West Ham miss Declan Rice – and fears they may have sold him on the
CHEAP. The Hammers have racked up 10 games without a clean sheet, suffering the latest blot on their copybook in the last 10 minutes in Freiburg on Thursday night.
Although the £105million England midfielder was subjected to pantomime villain treatment when he returned to the London Stadium with Arsenal this season, Hammers boss Moyes believes Rice’s mopping-up was a critical ingredient.
And he now wishes the Eastenders had held out for £150m last summer – because Rice has looked a more accomplished player than others who have fetched nine-figure transfer fees.
The Hammers’ last shut-out was against Brighton on January 2, and Moyes – who had always prided himself on building teams with a strong defensive core – said: “It’s not nice. We work hard to make sure we’re defensively sound and I genuinely believe there’s no successful team that hasn’t got the best defence.
“Having that normally gives you a good chance of getting a result somewhere. At the moment we’re not as strong as we should be in some areas.
“We’ve hugely missed Declan Rice. I think Declan covered up a lot of things, was able to tidy things up and help us. He’s probably the best player in England at the moment, I would say.
“If you lose the best player in England out of your team, you’re going to be affected one way or the other – it doesn’t matter how good your signings have been and how well they’ve done.
“And by the way, a lot of things get talked about how much money we spend, but nobody talks about how much money we’ve taken in as well. “Brighton have taken a lot of money in, but I think we’re probably right up there with the biggest ones that take money in as well.
“I always said, and I think everyone laughed, that Dec should have been £150million. Other players have been sold for close to that price and I don’t think they’ve touched Declan’s level of performance. “The other thing is Declan is
English, an England international, and he’s 25 now so he’s still got another six or seven of his best years still to come.
“So I think in time maybe we’ll look back and think it could have been more.
“But let’s be fair, I think most people – everybody – would have said it was a really good price for Declan at the time.”
Moyes, whose Europa Conference League champions face struggling Burnley today, is keeping half an eye on the UEFA co-efficients which could offer a fifth English club a Champions League place next season.
But he is still scarred by his last brief encounter with Europe’s elite at Everton 19 years ago.
He said: “Because of the co-efficient, I was still thinking with a bit of luck one of the English teams might win the Champions League, and help us to get other teams through.
“Fifth can get you Champions League this year, but remember the last time that happened? I was manager at Everton and Liverpool won it. F ****** hell!
“We ended up drawing Villarreal in the play-off, unbelievable.
“And they went on to lose to Arsenal in the semi-final, with Riquelme and all those for Villarreal. I couldn’t believe the draw. If we can nick a spot again, it would be fabulous for us.”