{"id":193179,"date":"2024-06-25T15:13:57","date_gmt":"2024-06-25T15:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/06\/25\/declan-rice-hits-back-at-bitter-james-mccleans-criticism\/"},"modified":"2024-06-25T15:13:57","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T15:13:57","slug":"declan-rice-hits-back-at-bitter-james-mccleans-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/06\/25\/declan-rice-hits-back-at-bitter-james-mccleans-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Declan Rice hits back at \u2018bitter\u2019 James McClean\u2019s criticism \u2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Declan Rice has responded to criticism from former Republic of Ireland teammate James McClean, who branded the Arsenal midfielder as \u2018overrated\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Rice, who is currently representing England at\u00a0Euro 2024, played three times for Ireland\u2019s senior team before switching his allegiances to the Three Lions in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>He now forms a vital part of Gareth Southgate\u2019s squad, occupying the central midfield role behind an attacking lineup that includes Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and fellow\u00a0Arsenal\u00a0star Bukayo Saka.<\/p>\n<p>However, Wrexham and Ireland winger McLean claimed earlier this tournament that\u00a0Rice\u00a0is \u2018overrated\u2019, while he also famously hit out at the midfielder in the past for swapping Ireland for England.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Declan Rice is overrated,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, I think he\u2019s a very good footballer, but the way the English media wax lyrical about him is completely over the top. For me, he\u2019s not world-class.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rice, who faced\u00a0heavy criticism from fans and pundits after England\u2019s 1-1 draw with Denmark\u00a0on Thursday, was asked to address these comments ahead of his nation\u2019s final Euro 2024 group game against Slovenia.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/01j17dqyst92p5w7caee.jpg\" alt=\"Nabil Fekir, Declan Rice\" title=\"Nabil Fekir, Declan Rice\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>Rice previously represented Ireland \/ Jean Catuffe\/GettyImages<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p>Rice told reporters: \u201cI played with James for Ireland for three games and I got on with him really well. I am not going to sit here and slag him off. I thought he was a really top guy. When I left Ireland to come to England, I heard a few things he was obviously not happy about. He made comments a few years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is what it is. I am not going to sit here and say anything about him. He\u2019s had a great career himself \u2013 I think he is coming to the end of his career now and he\u2019s got over a hundred caps for Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s entitled to his opinion and I\u2019ve had to fight a load of those opinions from other people before. It might be a bit of bitterness towards me not playing for Ireland but I\u2019ve not got a bad word to say about him, to be honest. I see the comments but I don\u2019t try to put too much energy into it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 --><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Declan Rice has responded to criticism from former Republic of Ireland teammate James McClean, who branded the Arsenal midfielder as \u2018overrated\u2019. Rice, who is currently representing England at\u00a0Euro 2024, played three times for Ireland\u2019s senior team before switching his allegiances to the Three Lions in 2019. He now forms a vital part of Gareth Southgate\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":193180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Declan Rice hits back at \u2018bitter\u2019 James McClean\u2019s criticism \u2013 - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/06\/25\/declan-rice-hits-back-at-bitter-james-mccleans-criticism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Declan Rice hits back at \u2018bitter\u2019 James McClean\u2019s criticism \u2013 - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Declan Rice has responded to criticism from former Republic of Ireland teammate James McClean, who branded the Arsenal midfielder as \u2018overrated\u2019. Rice, who is currently representing England at\u00a0Euro 2024, played three times for Ireland\u2019s senior team before switching his allegiances to the Three Lions in 2019. 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