daniel hargley

🚨 Declan Rice on Gabriel playing through injury and scoring against Everton: “I remember looking over and seeing Gabriel on the ground. The medical staff were attending to him, and you could tell he was in discomfort. My first thought was that we’d lost him. When a player like Gabriel goes down holding his leg, you worry because you know how much he gives you defensively. I went over and asked him, ‘Gabi, are you alright?’ He said, ‘I’m fine.’ I looked at him and said, ‘You’ve been on the floor for 2 minutes. What do you mean you’re fine?’ He just kept saying he wanted to continue. That’s Gabriel for you. Sometimes you have to remind him that he’s actually a human being. The physios were checking him, the manager was watching from the touchline, and I remember telling him, ‘Listen, nobody’s going to blame you if you have to come off.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Dec, we’re winning this game. I’m not leaving you boys.’ And that was the end of the conversation as far as he was concerned. A few minutes later, we’re preparing for a set piece, and there he is, walking into Everton’s penalty area. I said, ‘Gabi, are you sure you should be up here?’ He told me, ‘Just put the ball in.’ That’s all he said. You have to understand something about Gabriel. When we’re defending, he takes everything personally. If a striker gets past him, he’s annoyed. If somebody wins a header against him, he’s annoyed. Sometimes we’re two goals ahead and he’s still shouting at everyone because we’ve allowed somebody a shot. So when he got his goal, I wasn’t even surprised that he’d found a way to contribute. I was surprised that he still had enough energy to celebrate. And afterwards, I said to him, ‘You know, most players get injured and ask to come off. You get injured and decide to score.’ He started laughing. But that’s the standard he’s set for himself. People see the goal and they’ll talk about his heading, his positioning, the number of goals he’s scored as a defender. What I see is somebody who was lying on the pitch in pain, got back up, and still wanted to be the man his teammates could depend on. That’s why we trust him. And when you have somebody like that standing behind you, you don’t want to let him down either. He’s not just defending our goal. He’s defending what we’re trying to build here.”