This Arsenal player has had an underwhelming campaign so far by his standards
With club football now being on a hold till after this set of international fixtures, it will not only give Mikel Arteta and the backroom staff a breather after a hectic few weeks, it will also give them the perfect opportunity to assess the squad and plan for the tough run of fixtures in November as well. This break will also give the gooners a chance to have a closer look at how our players have fared so far this season.
When looking at our squad, one player who has performed a tad below expectation this season would be Declan Rice. This might be in part due to the exceptional form he showed last season especially in the second half of the campaign where he had a lot of goal contributions when pushed higher up the pitch as our left 8.
So if it’s due to his exceptional form last season, does it mean that we fans might be expecting too much or has his level dropped from the previous campaign?
Looking at purely the statistics, the answer is yes given he has failed to register a single goal contribution so far this campaign, despite being on set piece duties for most of the time and still playing in the advanced 8 role for us. Also the red card against Brighton also adds to how underwhelming his campaign has been so far, even though he missed just a game because of it.
It’s not that he’s dropping stinkers or anything but I expected to see more from the England international in the form of goal contributions or consistent chance creation.
We all know what we’ll get with Rice in the team, the insane work rate, his physical presence in the midfield and much more which we haven’t got to see all of in this campaign so far and that is the main reason why I think he has underperformed a bit in this campaign so far (in my opinion)
With this in mind would now be the time we revert him back to defensive midfield role and play Merino as the left 8 instead? Let me know gooners!
KENNETH BENJAMIN.
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