Less than a month after joining, Declan Rice’s big money move to The Arsenal has already paid off as he wins the biggest trophy of his career.
One of the key reasons he left West Ham was to compete for the top trophies.
Clearly fed up of endless relegation battles, his only trophy with the Hammers was the UEFA Europa Conference League. West Ham fans calling themselves ‘Champions of Europe’ is the equivalent of Wrexham calling themselves ‘Champions of England’ after they also won the Conference.
It is always good to see players play at the level they deserve too. Rice has clearly learnt from international teammate Harry Kane, who has spent his best years trophyless.
Winning the European Johnstone’s Paint Trophy did not make West Ham one of the big boys. Dec’s career will now go from strength to strength having made the step up to a top club.
Rice is a superstar. A World Class player who was plying his trade in a team who plays in 3rd tier European football.He had the pick of clubs from around the world and chose The Arsenal.
Whilst the Community Shield is not a major honour, it is tougher to win than the Europa Conference.
You either have to win the Premier League, win the FA Cup or finish 2nd in the league to compete in it. To enter the Europa Conference you need to finish 7th.
And then in the Community Shield, you often get two of the best teams in England playing each other. To win it we had to beat the Champions Man City.
West Ham’s opponents in the Conference thingamig reads like a list of bad European stag do options: Viborg, FCSB, Silkeborg, Anderlecht, AEK Larnaca, Genk, AZ and Fiorentina. I have only heard of two of those clubs.
In the final, West Ham faced the 8th best team in Italy. We faced the best team in England. The two competitions are simply not comparable.
Rice will only get better playing with better players. He has gone from being a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a big pond. He will have to keep working hard on his game, improving to reach the level required for an Arsenal player.
His Arsenal career has got off to a great start with his first trophy in the bag, and the biggest of his career. More will now follow!
UTA
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
Have you forgotten so soon that he won conference league trophy last season, or you mean community shield is bigger than the European conference league?
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Waheed, you obviously never read the article before commenting did you?
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True, it takes higher qualifications to play in the Community Shield and against tougher opponent. It pays almost 5 times the money than the League Cup won by Man Utd. But rivals fans are immune to facts when it comes to Arsenal. Let’s move on and focus on the EPL. We got a lot to prove this season.
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We’ve got a lot to prove and finish 2nd for the third time in a row*
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