How Arsenal have transformed the career of Declan Rice
Since Declan Rice arrived at the Emirates last July in a club-record signing deal of £105 million from West Ham, his career has only jumped to greater heights while helping Arsenal too.
The former Hammer who had only just taken West Ham to 2022/23 Europa League Conference glory as captain, before signing certainly had a lot to live up to when becoming a Gunner.
However the back to back Euro finalist (2020 and 2024) with England filled his boots even more at London Colney in the middle of the park upon arrival. In relation to the statistics on Transfer Market Rice nearly doubled the tally of goals he had the previous year at the London Stadium. After his first 38 Premier League games in an Arsenal shirt he had seven goals when he had only recorded four during the 2022/23 West Ham season in the top-flight of English football.
That wasn’t his greatest feat though he supplied almost five times the number of goals in comparison to the 2022/23 Hammers Premier League run with nine assists.
One thing which hasn’t changed though for the midfielder is his disciplinary record. For the second consecutive year the referee handed him the yellow card five times.
His defensive displays served his name well performing more successful tackles (83) more than any other Gunner last season and having the third joint highest number in the Premier League.
Rice formed one of the greatest Premier League partnerships in the midfield alongside Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard and certainly helped The Gunners pick up the pace when needed at times during matches with his almighty drives from defence to attack.
Despite wearing a 2023 winner’s medal in Budapest after West Ham beat Italian side AFC Fiorentina 2-1 in the Europa League Conference final, Rice had never won a piece of English domestic silverware until joining Arsenal. This saw him lift the 2023 Community Shield after Arsenal knocked down Manchester City 4-1 on penalties after drawing 1-1 after 90 minutes, fighting back from a goal down in the final minutes of the encounter. Like any other English player he would’ve preferred to have won the Premiership which Arsenal failed to do at the end of his first season in May.
Hopefully for him and Arsenal he tastes Premier League success during the up and coming 2024/25 season!
Liam Harding
Truly great players are generally going to be better as they play with better clubs/players. The incredible defense and team structure has allowed Rice to play in a more forward position. He appears to be one of those players who would be effective one way or the other no matter where he plays on the pitch.
Typical deluded Arsenal supporters, Rice was absolutely awful for England at the Euros and his performances for England in general have been poor since moving to the Emirates! He also actually won a European Trophy at West Ham but won nothing at all last season with Arsenal so how his career has jumped to greater heights I m not really sure? As I said deluded Arsenal supporters!
keep on crying
Talk about delusional
Only one person to blame for his England performances, and that’s Southgate. For The Arsenal he’s been terrific. As for that European Trophy, I dare say we would win it if we ever qualified for it…
As a West Ham fan I’d like to point out that Rice was playing in a far more negative,boring team and a different role under boring negative David Moyes who always played with the hand break on.
With respect I think Rice was always going to improve under any different modern manager who wasn’t stuck in the 1990s school of football book that Moyes took out from the library and never returned.
I’m glad all you Arsenal fans can see what us West Ham lot were saying for years,he’s a quality player/lad and you don’t realise how good he is till you watch him playing for your own team, I think you would of seen a much better Rice at West Ham as well if we weren’t stuck with dinosaur David Moyes and his negative approach to everything.
Good post IB. Anyone with a footballing brain could see what a player he was at the Hammers. Elegant on the ball, strong purposeful runs, a fine range of passing and a strong shot.
He is a terrific player. The more cynical may say he should be for £105m, although the spectre of Pepe is a warning against that kind of “fee complacency”.
Now he’s settled in we can expect to see even better from Rice in the coming seasons. I think he needs to be a little mindful about his disciplinary record though as he only benefits Arsenal on the pitch.
I thought we were buying a top of the range defensive midfielder but have been pleasantly surprised by his attacking ability
When we get his long-term partner we will be blown away by how good we are in midfield. Last season Rice was great but he had three different partners and played in two different positions. We need a settled midfield