New Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice was spotted doing something interesting shortly before kick-off this Saturday, whilst his stats suggest his style of play will change a lot under Mikel Arteta.
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On the opening weekend of the 2023/34 Premier League season, the Gunners played host to Nottingham Forest at the Emirates claiming a 2-1 victory.
The actual game got off to a worrying start as ticketing issues meant kick-off was delayed by 30 minutes with fans unable to get into the stadium.
Eventually, though, the players came out onto the pitch and shortly before the game started, the Arsenal squad gathered in a group for some final words in a team huddle.
As has become customary at this point, the club’s anthem The Angel (North London Forever), a song by Louis Dunford, was sung loudly by the crowd.
However, at that moment, footage shared on Twitter by TNT Sports appeared to capture an emotional Rice – who was of course making his competitive home debut – singing along with the tune as you can see below.
How did Declan Rice play against Nottingham Forest?
Once the match actually began, Forest sat deep and despite having the best chance to open the scoring when Brennan Johnson shot high and wide when one-on-one, Arsenal’s dominance soon told with a sublime bit of skill from Gabriel Martinelli opening the space for Eddie Nketiah to fire in an opener.
Just six minutes later, the excellent Bukayo Saka cut inside on his left foot and curled a beauty into the top corner from distance to double the Gunners’ lead.
In the second half, Arsenal appeared content to control possession without pushing too hard for another goal and that nearly came back to haunt them.
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Indeed, despite barely threatening, Forest managed a rare but impactful counterattack as Anthony Elanga drove purposely up the pitch before crossing for Taiwo Awoniyi to score from close range.
Despite this late scare, Arteta’s men did enough to cling to all three points to get their Premier League campaign off to the ideal start.
Starting in the middle of the park, Rice was tidy without being outstanding and this was reflected with his 7/10 player rating score given by journalist Kaya Kaynak but he was given more freedom to get forward than we’ve perhaps seen in the past.
The football.london writer explained: “Another who played most of the game not in the position he technically started it, but this hybrid role showed some of Rice’s qualities. High interceptions and athletic runs into the box aplenty.”
It was certainly interesting to see him attack more, after all, as per SofaScore, the midfielder finished the game with three shots on target, while he also hit the post (which doesn’t count as a shot on target).
When you look at what he did in the Premier League last term while still at West Ham United, in the entire season, he only managed eight shots on target (via Fbref) showing just how much more of a licence he will have to get forward under Arteta in North London.
Again, looking at Fbref, during his whole time at the Hammers, he never managed to reach double figures for shots on target in an entire league campaign – with nine being his highest in 2019/20.
After managing three on his Emirates Arsenal debut, we can perhaps expect to see a very different Rice over the coming weeks.
