“It just shows you how much all the players cared.”
After West Ham were knocked out of the Europa League by Frankfurt, a video began to circulate that featured Declan Rice accusing the referee of corruption following a few bad calls.
“Ref… it’s so poor… all night, it’s so poor,” said Rice.
“It’s so bad. How can you be that bad? Honestly, you’ve probably been f***ing paid. F***king corruption.”
“Gutted. We’re gutted in there.”
“We’ve given everything this year.”
“The sending off was a sending off, but some of the other decisions were poor.”
As always Declan Rice wears his heart on his sleeve. You can see how much this one hurts.
🎙 @Becky_Ives_ #UEL pic.twitter.com/fv7QT03wpN
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) May 5, 2022
David Moyes opted not to shame Rice for his comments and instead seemed to side with his star player.
“It just shows you how much all the players cared,” said Moyes the day after the clash.
David Moyes’ reaction
“We all cared very much last night. We felt as if we had been treated quite badly overall and that is what happens.”
Moyes didn’t directly complain about the referee’s calls but admitted that he too had been concerned by some of the ‘circumstances’ surrounding his side’s loss.
“If you know about football, everybody is emotional so unless you’re in the heat of it sometimes people don’t understand how it feels.
“Last night, we had a group of players who were really connected, trying to win the game and felt it was very difficult under lots of different circumstances.”
🗣 “We felt as if we had been treated quite badly overall.”
David Moyes’ reaction to Declan Rice confronting the referee after their Europa League exit pic.twitter.com/lwQf4e25Rs
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) May 6, 2022
Moyes also had his own run-in with the referee when the referee decided to send him off, a decision that Moyes claims he hasn’t given much thought to.
“We’ve thought about the game. Have I thought about my sending off? Not really but I’ve thought about the game, what the players have done, how well they’ve done over the whole competition.
“I’m a bit more reflective this morning than I was yesterday but I’m not thinking about my sending off.”
Read More About: Declan Rice, West Ham