COMMENT Rice is Mr six or seven out of ten
Arsenal star not in the same league as a great like Keane
DECLAN Rice scored one goal and created another on Saturday to help a very rich Arsenal team beat a financially restricted Bournemouth one.
And all of a sudden the English Press were wetting themselves with excitement about ‘our Declan’.
This is what they wrote in The Times: “Is there a more influential footballer in the Premier League right now? A player whose impact upon teammates, opponents, performances and results is quite as consistent or profound?”
Well, for England’s sake, I certainly hope so.
Now, let’s be clear. Rice is a good player. He is a leader. He wins tackles. He passes the ball — conservatively — but accurately. But when I listen to Arsenal fans sing, ‘Declan Rice, we got him half-price’, I roll my eyes.
Bargain
They didn’t get a bargain. They paid way over the odds for a good but limited midfielder. Rice is Mr six or seven out of ten. Nothing else.
The one pundit who has Rice summed up in a nutshell is Roy Keane.“Needs to score more goals,”Keane said, way back in October.
There was an outcry as there always is when an English blue blood international gets questioned.
One journalist, who I know personally, texted me the following information on Saturday: “Do you know that Rice has now scored more goals this season than Roy Keane did in United’s Treble winning year?”
That’s when I lost it.
Declan Rice is no Roy Keane. Never was. Never will be. I wouldn’t put them in the same conversation. People are obsessed with stats these days but you cannot measure what Keane did in an Irish and United shirt.
There isn’t a statistical box that sums up the intelligence of his decision-making.
He was Alex Ferguson’s lieutenant on the field.
He knew instinctively when to go and join an attack or when to stay deep and plug a gap.
He was a brilliant, and underrated passer, a ferocious competitor, a tactical genius.
More than anything, he made his team-mates perform 20 per cent better than they ordinarily would.
Declan Rice doesn’t do that because he doesn’t have the personality or the depth of character. Rice is the ultimate politician. He smiles for the cameras. Wherever he goes he talks about his love for club or country.
He sang our national anthem, he kissed our badge, then as soon as he England fluttered her eyelids, he was off.
Similarly with West Ham. “I love the club,” he said. Love led to divorce when he had the scent of Arsenal in his nostrils.
Person
Players will suss out a character like Rice.
They’ll see him for what he is, a good player, but not a great one. A man who plays to the gallery and says the things he knows fans want to hear.
But give me a Roy Keane over him any day, not just as a player but also as a person.
When Keane didn’t play in the 2002 World Cup, I was gutted. I wanted to see him on the biggest stage.
When Rice walked away from Ireland, I knew the team would be weaker but I honestly didn’t want someone who had such a flippant attitude about our nationality hanging around the place.
Many people have criticised Martin O’Neill and his then assistant, Keane, for failing to nail Rice down to the Ireland
cause. But how can you blame them?
O’Neill showed his integrity as a man and a manager. He could have been cynical and tricked Rice, and years earlier, Jack Grealish, into a situation where they end up playing competitively for Ireland at a very young age. But he did the right thing.
Neither player was ready for competitive international football. O’Neill knew this.
He met both their fathers. He knew their preference was to switch to England. So he used his integrity.
Declare
He made it clear he wanted them to declare for Ireland and that he would pick them once they were ready but he was not going to misguide either Rice or Grealish or their parents.
That showed real honesty.
And it is time Ireland fans showed O’Neill a bit of respect for that decision. It is not his fault Rice and Grealish left to play for England.
They left because they wanted to, because their heads were turned, possibly by agents, or more likely by the fact they grew up in that country.
They felt English. So good luck to them. Even though results have not been good for Ireland, I don’t mourn their loss.
Rice, to me, is the ultimate politician and modern footballer.
There are question marks over his sincerity for sure and question marks, too, about his ability. Yes, he can play … to an extent.
But would I rather have a Roy Keane in my team or a Declan Rice? That’s not even a question worth asking.
One was great. The other pretends to be.