Declan Rice interview: 'Arteta makes you want to play for him' (2024)

The idea that top-level footballers can have their eyes opened to a new world by one man can sound difficult to believe. Often the assumption made is that the player can’t be much of a connoisseur if they find new methods so hypnotic, but Declan Rice is a self-avowed football addict.

The Arsenal midfielder has such a boyish glint in his eye whenever he talks about football that he may have thought he was a clued-up student of the game — until he started working with Mikel Arteta.

As Rice opens up on his first ten days working with his new manager, as team chefs cook behind him on the immaculate lawn at the club’s sprawling California hotel, his pupils are gleaming that little bit more than usual.

“I genuinely feel like the next football match I will watch, I will watch it in a completely different way,” Rice tells The Athletic.

“I will watch it from back to front, starting with the goalkeeper and how the opposition press but I usually just watched it for the fun of it. Hopefully someone scores and you get a bit of a buzz.

“Now I am probably going to watch the tactical aspect: what are they doing, how are they playing out from the back or trying to press? He has constantly got you thinking.

“His game model, which he has tried to apply since he got here, last year you saw it really click. For me I have only been here ten days and it has been a lot to learn. I am eager to learn it.

“I am not going to learn it in two weeks — it is going to take some time — but once I have got it, once I add the stuff he wants to my game along with my qualities, hopefully I can improve tenfold. Let’s see where it takes me.”

Ilkay Gundogan this week said that he “didn’t know anything” about football until he started being coached by Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola.

When Rice was 2-0 down to Arsenal after 10 minutes with West Ham in April, he says it was impossible not to be struck by the style of play.

“You look round and think, ‘Wow, how are we going to stop this team, constantly overloading us, constantly finding the spare player?”.

But even though the likes of Bukayo Saka, Aaron Ramsdale and Eddie Nketiah were all telling him how much Arteta improved them and that he is constantly thinking ‘football, football, football’, experiencing it first hand has exceeded his expectations.

“When you hear that without seeing it, you think ‘that is interesting’, but when you actually get here and you see how he actually is, it’s mind-boggling,” he says.

“Genuinely, in the last 10 days I have been blown away by how he is constantly thinking football, how he is so orientated to win.”

Rice was coached by Slaven Bilic, Manuel Pellegrini and David Moyes in his six full seasons as a senior West Ham player. They all played a similar way and Rice thrived as a powerful ball-winning, ball-carrying midfielder, but the role of playing the No 6 position under Arteta demands a very different skillset.

“Mikel is like a complete opposite end in terms of the way he sees football and the way he wants to play,” he says.

“Just the way he wants to play in terms of build-up, the way he inverts with the full-backs, understanding the positional sense of not being on the same line, not coming towards the ball too early, staying away from the ball, creating space for others. It’s just so much to take in.

“He knows the qualities I have, that’s why he brought me to Arsenal. He still wants me to have those qualities but on top of learning his stuff. I think he sees someone that’s really eager and he knows that I can go to another level if I start to apply the stuff that I’ve never learned before.

“It’s a waiting game. Of course you can’t wait forever. I’m already learning so much and I’m working so hard to try to improve and understand it.”

Rice says he went through some clips of his full debut against Manchester United on Saturday with one of Arteta’s assistants. There were some really good things in first phase of build-up but times where his position in relation to his team-mates might have stopped a pattern of play emerging.

It is a complete adaptation for him but he believes he has the bandwidth to make a success of his £105million move.

Rice already feels at home, but it was Arteta’s ability to get inside his head during the pitch Arsenal’s manager made to him that convinced him this was the right place to move on to.

“The other day he said he sees me like a lighthouse. As a player it is really special to hear things like that. He is a football coach but he is also a really good psychological coach. He makes you want to play for him, he makes you want to do anything for him. Everything just felt like the right fit to be honest.

“I really feel like they are going in the right trajectory. Even though the average fan might not think that, when you are in football you know. You can see it.”

Rice was not just signed for his ability, it was his character and the way he can energise a team that made Arsenal so determined to get him.

Having not moved clubs in a decade it can be a daunting process for a new signing to go through. He liked the familiarity of the number 41 shirt — and that it keeps his signature the same — so he kept it but he has tried to resist the temptation to quietly blend in by performing Ice, Ice Baby as his initiation song.

“You are always conscious of feeling like the new person. In my head, when I went there, I said to myself going in — I did not say this to anyone, I was just thinking it in my head — that I was going to be as outgoing as possible.

“I just wanted to go up and speak to people. The physios, chefs, players and get to know about them, see Win (the club’s dog). It was important for me to do that. So people can see my character, see what I am like.

“I have been at West Ham before when new players come in and they can be shy, you have to make them feel welcome. I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to impose myself and let them know what I am like as a person. Already, after ten days, I feel like I have known everyone my whole life.”

Having been made West Ham captain last season at 23, becoming just the third skipper to lift a major trophy in the club’s history, he knows how to handle pressure.

Martin Odegaard is Arsenal’s captain but Rice has joined the youngest squad in the Premier League where he is expected to quickly become a leader in the group.

“When I was on a football pitch I was like a sponge, I just wanted to learn. If I had to get told off, I would rather that and learn than not be told anything. With Moyes I had so many hairdryers where he would give it to me after games. I had it in training a couple of times. I needed those experiences.

“In my announcement video that I was leaving West Ham I had a short clip at the start where I said I see myself as a leader. I was only around 15 then.

“I have always wanted to be a captain, to lead the team. I have always wanted to be approachable, to push squads. That is just how I am as a person. I think you are just built with it.”

The fee Arsenal paid for Rice is a club record. It is also a record for a British player bought by a Premier League club.

Does he not feel the pressure with all the hype surrounding him and the expectation that he will be the catalyst which takes Arsenal to Premier League glory?

“I took myself away from social media. It’s so easy to get caught up as you read one thing, that leads on to another thread and then you’ve been on there for an hour reading stuff. You just read things that aren’t true, it’s just chaos. You just try take yourself away from all that and just try to enjoy you break as much as possible as you only get three weeks off.

“I know I got bought for £105m but I have not thought about it once. I don’t decide the price, I just play football.

“What has got me here is my quality, what I have done for West Ham over the past six years. That isn’t going to change. Of course there is that level of expectation where you get bought for that much, people want to see more goals, you are going to be scrutinised more, you are going to be watched more. That comes with the job.

“Over the six years (length of contract), don’t judge me over a year, judge me over six years and hopefully I can repay it back with a few trophies.”

Rice has the bonus of having a family who not only try to protect him from the glare of speculation. His dad Sean and older brother Conor help look after his affairs so they have been with him every step of the way.

Although it was a wrench to leave West Ham, a club he clearly cares for deeply, his family understand that football is a short career and are fully behind his decision.

“I feel like I have such a good balance with my family. Unless they have something really important, they are not going to pester me with stuff that needs to go into my brain. They know I have football to think about, I have a little boy to think about.

“It’s been really good to be honest with you, we have a really good balance. I know sometimes it can go wrong but with my family we are so close knitted, it’s really worked for me, it’s been really special.

“My mum and dad came here yesterday, they dropped me off some moisturiser as I had run out! It’s what mums are for! They are delighted. For them, to see their son playing Premier League football for Arsenal, it must be so proud for them. I don’t actually ever stop and think about it because I’m so full-on all the time.”

It could have all been so different for him. Ten years ago Rice was released by Chelsea but rather than cruelly drift out of the game he rebounded at West Ham and has worked his way to the top.

“I’ve learned so much in terms of when I got released I had to move away from home. I’m so family-oriented, I still live with my mum and dad at the moment. When I moved away from them, coming from such a close knit family, that taught me a lot in how to grow up, be away from them.

“So many times I got taken off at half-time under Bilic, Pellegrini — big learning curves. It’s about being strong minded. Of course you have doubts along the way, it’s about having the belief that you can get better. You just have to take it in your stride. It could easily have gone the other way. You do need a bit of luck in football, but when you get your chance you need to impose yourself and take it.

“Once I knew I was getting my chance to train with the first team I thought, ‘This is it, my one chance to impress the manager and the players’. I did that and every year I’ve kicked on.”

Although Rice admits saying goodbye to West Ham was hard because of the love and respect he has for the fans, he could not have given them a more euphoric ending after winning the UEFA Europa Conference League in Prague.

His future was up in the air at that point and all his focus was on achieving history for the club that had given him his career, but he could not help but become emotional before kick-off.

“We walked out on to the pitch and the West Ham end was full and singing songs. It sounds a bit dramatic but I was stood next to Nobes (Mark Noble) and I didn’t tell him I got a bit emotional, I tried to hide it, but I was like ‘this is incredible’. In my mind there was no way we were gonna lose this game.

“I know what it means to them, they’ve had so many ups and so many downs. It was the icing on the cake, I couldn’t speak highly enough of that night. The fans were constantly singing that song which really touched me. To have so many people singing it, and me singing it back to them, I genuinely felt the love of the fans. That’s how I see them as well, I never want them to think any differently.

“When an opportunity arises that you can play Champions League football, compete for the title, work with Mikel, I’m sure the fans understand you get one career and you need to try and maximise that.”

Lifting silverware has whetted his appetite for more and with 2023-24 being the twenty-year anniversary of the last time Arsenal won the Premier League title, Rice’s determination to make history and become the legacy player Arsenal believe he can be is palpable.

“That is what won me over. Being young and seeing how young this squad is and the things they achieved last year. Now what we can go on to achieve? That means a lot to me, that we can be a special group that wins big things. I don’t think we are far off at all.

“That is one of the main factors why I joined. That challenge of Arsenal being back at the top means a lot to me.”

(Top photo: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)