David Moyes reveals just how much Declan Rice sale has hurt West Ham
- Rice left West Ham for Arsenal in £105m deal last summer
- Midfielder is flying for the Gunners but inconsistent West Ham have fallen to a slump
- No team outside the bottom three have conceded more goals than the Hammers
By Tom Gott
David Moyes has admitted losing "the best midfielder in the country" Declan Rice has left West Ham United scrambling to fix major holes in their defence.
A 5-0 defeat to Chelsea on Sunday afternoon took West Ham's goals conceded tally up to 70 - no side outside the current relegation zone has shipped as many goals as the Hammers this season.
West Ham's poor showing came as a stark contrast to Rice's own campaign. The midfielder, who joined Arsenal for £105m, narrowly came up short in the race for the FWA Footballer of the Year award recently and bagged his seventh goal of the season as Arsenal saw off Bournemouth.
Asked what has gone wrong for West Ham's defence this season, Moyes quickly pointed to the absence of their former talisman.
"When you've got the best midfield player in the country protecting, probably limiting 50% of their attacks it makes you much a better defensive team," Moyes explained.
"We’ve lacked protection in front of the back four, lacked good enough defending, not been good enough at those things in many games."
On the other side of the argument, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta admitted he has been pleasantly surprised by Rice's attacking output and even confessed to being unsure where the England international's best position actually is.
"We thought that that was going to be very related to the spaces he was going to occupy on the pitch," Arteta said of Rice's goalscoring exploits. "But then it's something else to do it in this league. He's done it. Credit to him.
"Even when we've changed him from position to position, it's not easy to adapt to that, so I think he deserves a lot of credit for that.
"You need to think about the relationship between those units, what comes out of that, and is it better than using certain other things? That's also related to the moment that the player is in in the season and what kind of opponents you play and what kind of game you imagine more of a threat."
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