Rice reaction as West Ham go down

The whole thing is a reminder that supporters do not all process player exits the same way. Some remember the trophies, the captaincy and the years of service, others only remember the move away and the shirt he wears now. But turning every reaction into a judgment of his character is a bit much, because nobody actually knows what goes on in his head and not every expression needs to be decoded like a crime scene tbh it is just football and people are overcooking it again
 
had a pint earlier with a west ham lad who still talks about rice like he is part of the furniture and then another bloke at the bar was going on about how he should never be forgiven for leaving and honestly it was like listening to two different generations argue over the same player for half an hour while the pub telly had the relegation news on mute and everyone was just shaking their heads because football does this to people, proper emotional damage for no reason
 
Tactically, the interesting bit is how much of West Ham’s identity was tied to him leading from midfield. When a player that important leaves, the emotional loss and the footballing loss are both huge. That is why reactions like this always hit harder than a normal transfer.
 
Honestly the whole thing is just another example of fans wanting to have it both ways because if a player stays they say he has no ambition and if he goes they call him a snake and then if he shows emotion about the old club going down they say he is doing it for the cameras and I am sick of the lot of it because the man literally gave them years of his life and people still act like he personally invented relegation
 
He looked genuinely upset to me, but some fans will never buy it because he is at Arsenal now and that is just how it goes imo
 
The reaction seems believable to me. It is possible to care about an old club without pretending you still play for them.
 
people keep acting like he owes them some dramatic farewell speech every time west ham get mentioned and its embarrassing honestly he was their best player for ages he carried them through rough seasons he led them he won them something proper and now because he is at arsenal every little reaction gets picked apart by weirdos online and i swear some of these fans would rather be bitter than admit they had an elite player who actually cared and gave them everything he had
 
There is a real difference between a player leaving and a player completely washing his hands of a club. Rice does not look like that kind of case. At the same time, fans who were hurt by his exit are not wrong to feel annoyed when they see him emotional elsewhere. Both things can be true.
 
If anything this just shows how much football is about timing and framing, because the same reaction would be praised or mocked depending on the result and the badge on his shirt, and people are missing that the emotion itself is not the story, the reaction to the emotion is
 
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