Declan Rice believes “faultless” England have “silenced their critics” and that the rest of the world, including France, should be fearful of Gareth Southgate ’s men.
And Rice believes the performance against Senegal would have been labelled a ‘masterclass’ had any other nation delivered it on the Qatar 2022 stage. Southgate’s players were clearly riled at being labelled too negative heading into the tournament.
But they have now scored 12 goals in four matches - with eight different scorers - on their march into Saturday’s quarter-final showdown with the French. And Rice said: “We’re silencing the critics. I’ve said it all along. I don’t think we get the credit we deserve in our performances.
"I think if you look at other teams, like Holland and Argentina, they win their games comfortably and they get called masterclasses.
“With us, it always gets picked off. The negative things always come that way. If you look at the last couple of games, it’s been faultless. I think countries, like I said the other day, should be starting to fear us now because we’re a great team.”
The West Ham midfielder has been key to England’s outstanding form at the World Cup, which has seen them reverse the slide in fortunes in the build-up.
HAVE YOUR SAY! Who was England's man of the match against Senegal? Comment below.
England were accused of not being adventurous and of developing a worrying knack of conceding soft goals as they went on a winless six-game Nations League run.
And Rice is revelling in how he and his team-mates - who now boast a spell of three consecutive clean sheets - have turned that trend on its head as they have crushed unbeaten into the last eight.
He went on: “Going into the tournament, there was a lot of talk that we don’t score enough goals. That’s another one we’ve kept people quiet on. There was a lot of scrutiny around the defence and conceding goals, but it’s been solid. We’re going to keep building and pushing.”
And while France have also been outstanding in their progress to the weekend’s mouth-watering clash at the Al Bayt Stadium, Rice says England should not fear the world champions.
He went on: “These are the games we want to play in. They only come round once: England vs France, quarter-final, it doesn’t get bigger than that. We’ve got six days to prepare now and I’m sure the world will be watching. We really want to progress.”
And Rice believes England have been in total control of their game plans and that they have spotted FLAWS in the French that they will look to exploit.
He said: “Against the big teams, there has always been a lot of talk on us using the ball. I think in this tournament we’ve pretty much controlled every game. We’ve had a fair share of possession, we’ve moved it really well.
“The opening stages have been really shaky because teams are really trying to stop us playing. But once we get that goal, they have to change. It opens up and then you really start to see us play.
“Against France, we’ve seen some weaknesses in them that we can try to exploit. It’s set up for a great game.”
