Rice injury sparks Euros fear
Midfielder in race to recover in time for England campaign Mest Ham await further knee scans before ruling out surgery
Declan Rice is desperately hoping a knee injury will not end his West Ham United season or put his European Championship hopes at risk.
The midfielder injured his knee on international duty in the last of England’s three World Cup qualifiers, against Poland, and missed last night’s Premier League game against Wolverhampton Wanderers. The initial timescale put on his absence is four to six weeks.
Alongside a picture of himself with his thumb up, Rice tweeted last night: “Rehab has started. Gutted to be missing tonight’s game. Overwhelmed by the support but I’ll be back in no time. Come on the boys!”
West Ham tweeted: “Best of luck with your recovery, Dec!” while manager David Moyes said the team were taking the news in their stride.
“It’s disappointing,” Moyes said. “We knew after the England game that he wasn’t going to be available [against Wolves]. Anyway, we move on. We’ve been over the disappointment of that feeling. It gives other people opportunities. That’s what squads are for and hopefully we’ve got the squad to deal with it.”
It is understood Rice has been wearing a brace to avoid more damage while he and West Ham wait for the swelling to go down. Until they receive the results of further scans they cannot be sure he will not be out for longer or require surgery.
Losing Rice is a huge blow to West Ham’s hopes of maintaining a top-four challenge, while England cannot afford to lose the midfielder for the Euros. Surgery would almost certainly rule him out. England kick off against Croatia on June 13.
Rice is understood to have suffered the lateral knee ligament injury after around an hour during the Poland game, but played on and was named man of the match.
Gareth Southgate, the national team manager, is already sweating on the fitness of Liverpool midfielder Jordan Henderson and any doubts over Rice would present a major issue for him going into the summer.
Similarly, Moyes desperately needs to have Rice available, even if
just for a couple of games, as West Ham attempt to keep up their push for Europe. Even in the best scenario, Rice is unlikely to be back to face Leicester, Chelsea or Everton – West Ham’s three toughest games of their remaining eight.
Meanwhile, Steven Defour, Burnley’s former record signing, has announced he will retire at the end of the season.
Defour, who joined Burnley for £8million in August 2016 and made 58 appearances for the club, will call time on his playing career after battling injury.
“So, this is it, at the end of the season I hang my boots on the hook,” Defour wrote on Twitter. “Due to circumstances you sometimes have
to make choices faster than you intended. The daily physical pain made it impossible to deliver the performance I expect from myself.”
Defour left Burnley in September 2019 for Mechelen, but injury has limited him to only six starts in the Belgian League this season. He made 52 appearances for Belgium.