Declan Rice enjoying playing with 'special' group of West Ham players

West Ham captain Declan Rice believes the club have a "special" group of players after a dominant 4-1 win over Aston Villa strengthened their position in the Premier League's top four.

The 22-year-old put in another man of the match display to inspire his side to victory, providing the assist for Ben Johnson's opening goal before firing West Ham back in front from 25 yards after Ollie Watkins had levelled the scores.

Rice's all-around display was symbolic of his season so far. He dictated the tempo for West Ham from his deeper role in midfield, broke up play numerous times - including a tremendous flick header that took the ball away from Matty Cash - and was the player who instilled a bit of added belief and confidence amid an improved 10-minute second half spell from Villa.

Rice was interviewed after the game, where he admitted that David Moyes' current crop of players were understandably riding high after a tremendous recent run of results.

"It's a special group at the minute, a special environment," Rice said. "We wake up looking forward to training. Every game, we've been in it until the end. It's a special place to play and as you can see by our faces we’re over the moon.

"I can definitely add [goals] to my game, I have four this season now, one with England and three for West Ham. It doesn’t get better than the feeling of scoring a goal. I love playing away too, you are in someone else’s stadium and get the away fans who travel and come to support us, so to score and hear them erupt is really special.

Though West Ham ran out convincing winners in the end, Rice added that he felt West Ham could have been even better - alluding to their inability to kill Villa off earlier despite having a numerical advantage.

"We won 4-1 but we were sloppy in the second half," he added. "We gave the ball away so much. The manager won’t be happy about that, I gave away a few passes.. There were times we could have countered and gave it away, but we did it in the last ten minutes and in the end it played out how it should have done.

"We are joint third. The big question people asked before the season was whether we could do it again and could we get used to playing in Europe and the Premier League. We’ve found out we can. But there are still a lot more games to go. This is the level, the standard. We can’t drop if we want to be a big team."