Yeah he was visibly flagging after around 60 mins of that match, so was Jesus and a couple of others. Thank goodness we topped the group. They shouldn't even travel midweek.

Gazza M

Needs to make better decisions when he drives, few times where his runs have opened things up but he holds on too long and the space closes up.

    Could do with a rest. Guess this is why we’re being linked to so many midfielders

      7 days later

      lorddulaarsenal really is. A mate of mine was at the game today and came out raving about him. Hopefully he puts a performance like that in next week, we'll need him to.

        When he drives through with the ball it's like when you watch a game between youngsters and there's that one kid that is a lot physically bigger/stronger than the rest and when he gets on the ball the others can't really get near him.

        • est likes this.

        this guy is casually dropping 8-9/10 performances each week

        a by-product partey being out is that rices development has accelerated by dint of the extra responsibility he's had to carry, and boy has he carried it well. looks completely at home as the heartbeat of our midfield

        Feels like after most matches we come here and rave about him, not many mega money transfers turn out as planned but this guy is worth every penny so far. Really reminds me of when Liverpool dropped big money on Van Dijk and Allison, they elevated the team. Rice has done that for us so far.

          DiabyKungFu Good goal but we really need to see him score a Champions League knockout round hat-trick before we seriously start comparing him to Nicklas Bendtner. Folks are getting ridiculously ahead of themselves there.

          Well then. The stars have aligned perfectly. If Deccers doesn't get a hat-trick at the Emirates against Porto in the CL Round of 16, then we'll know for a fact that he's a fraud. Time for him to prove himself.

              Bendtner scored at the Camp Nou too against peak Barcelona. A hattrick here will only prove so much.

              JazzG Feels like after most matches we come here and rave about him

              I was going to make a post after the game yesterday but stopped short as I’d just be repeating myself.

              I think we’ve seen last couple of games that playing as a 6 doesn’t prevent him from making those driving runs.

                RocktheCasbah Haven't been on in and a while and I've got about two weeks of posts I'm working through but this one made me laugh as it reminded me of Wenger being described as "a glorified Director of Football".

                And Declan Rice. What a guy. He gives off proper excitable puppy vibes.

                    And I'm pretty sure my view in the summer was that Rice was a good player but surely we could have found someone else for the ridiculous money that was being touted at the time. Happy to say I'm an idiot.

                      Tam

                      To be fair you got a lot of 'there's probably someone in Europe for 1/3 of that fee'.

                        Tam same. He's ridiculously consistent.

                          Really grown into this role, you can see his passing range has improved and more confident in making more difficult passes.

                          Tam I mean, to be fair, I don't think I - or many others here - were immediately sold on the idea. But the more I thought about it, I thought Mikel has a clear idea of how he wants to play and if he thought Declan was the man for the job, then he was probably right.

                          Apologies for the journey through past and present tenses there...

                          I also thought it wasn't unreasonable to expect someone of his age to improve his game with better players around him than he had at West Ham. Especially being coached by a man who excelled in the same role for us.