Rice is one of three £100m players in the England squad and will win his 48th cap when he faces North Macedonia on Monday
  • ducdoi@alien.topOPBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Declan Rice’s selected comment on his price tag:

    “It’s £100 million, it’s a lot of money, I could understand the pressure that comes with it. Not only the pressure you put on yourself but there’s an expectation of being bought for that much money. People need to see performances straight away. I want to re-pay the club straight away, they have invested a lot of money in me, I need to prove why I can go there and change things. I can see why Jack struggled maybe at the start – mentally. He was a £100 million footballer but as he wasn’t playing as much, it was probably as bit different for him. Now he’s flying and it’s the same for me.”

  • Aggressive-Ad-7386@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    You know when he was first signed to Arsenal I was admittedly a bit worried. Considering the track record of the past £100m+ signings that have happened in the past decade, I feared he would be the next victim. But thankfully he turned out fine and is one of our best and most consistent players this season.

    Funnily enough, I think the Havertz scapegoating helped, with so many people focusing on him it help the take the spotlight away from him allowing to fit in naturally in the end.

  • Illustrious_Union199@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Here’s a hot take - nobody expected he would adapt so quickly and have so many skills in his locker. Dec often talks about his love playing as a 6, but his best games have been as a left 8. Arteta deserves a lot of credit here.

    • chino17@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      If you think that then you never really watched him a couple seasons ago. Bowen probably took all the attention in that season because I would say it was his break out season where he scored almost 20 goals but Dec was doing alot of what he does now in the midfield that season

        • chino17@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          Yes but it would be less noticeable because of how much quality City have in every position and how much of a well oiled machine they are

  • proshon@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    He’s been solid. Did anybody think he’d settle in as well as he has? He went from winning a european cup with WHU to bossing the midfield at Arsenal almost seamlessly. No transition period needed. Nobody even mentions the price tag since like GW1 or GW2

    • Business_Ad561@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Everything during his time at WH indicated that he was a top player with an incredible mentality. I am not surprised one bit.

    • InTheMiddleGiroud@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      It’s weird. I was so incredibly hyped when we got him, and then watching him I still think it’s mindboggling how good he is. He’s a rock defensively, 80/20 on 50/50s, fast, technically very sound, hits those sexy long passes and has scored important goals against United and Chelsea.

      I think having expectations from any player of this level of performances, would be setting them up to fail. But he’d easily live up to it.

    • fuckyourstyles@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Pretty much every west ham fan was 100% confident his transition would be smooth and immediate.

      I remember pressing X for doubt a lot, but credit to them, they knew what player he was.

  • RudeBottle@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    His approach was excellent. He was very conservative with the ball at the start of the season but he was also very reliable.

    Once he nailed down the basics of our system he began exerting his influence more and more and he became more adventurous with the ball. It’s a blueprint that everybody should follow.

    Havertz also started the same way but he’s not quite where we want him to be yet. It took a year for Grealish to find his feet at City and I suspect that might be the same for Kai.

  • SilverGoon@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    the biggest compliment you can give him is that his pirce tag is barely being mentioned by pundits/commentators/journalists unlike other recent transfers with big price tags - looking at you Antony

  • ShadowXYZ04@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Only people mentioning his price tag are people in this sub when talking about how no one is talking about his price tag lol. Speaks volumes of how brilliant he’s been. Happy to have him for the next 6 years.

  • SgtCrayon@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Not a single negative comment on this post. That’s a clear indicator of how much he is rated by team and fan base.

  • el-fenomeno09@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I will always say, that palace game was the day he said “fuck it gimme this shit”. Been great since