MR RELIABLE WILL HAVE TO LEAD FROM FRONT TONIGHT
HAVING once hoped to test his strongest XI in friendlies against Brazil and Belgium over the past week, Gareth Southgate has instead found himself in a position familiar to every Sunday league manager to have ever laid out a set of cones.
Plagued by more drop-outs than the local sixth-form college, the Three Lions boss has been left cobbling together a patchwork side, only a step or two shy of calling in the ringers as he ponders how best to make use of the final game before he names his squad for Euro 2024.
Kyle Walker? His car’s knackered. Bukayo Saka? His mum says he has to go to church. Harry Kane? Straight to voicemail. Ugh, fine. Has anyone got Rico Lewis’s number?
Inevitably, though, Southgate still has Declan Rice, first man in helping put up the nets, a reassuring constant that both David Moyes and Mikel Arteta have come to take similarly for granted, and with good reason, too.
Over the past three Premier League seasons, Rice has missed a grand total of three matches; two to illness, one to suspension and none to injury.
For England, since his debut five years ago this week, he has been unavailable for just one camp and been rested only twice in almost two-and-a-half years. In fact, as he prepares to win his 50th cap at Wembley tonight — and first as captain — the only slight surprise is that four men have got there faster, the teenage talents of Raheem Sterling, Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney and Marcus Rashford all quicker out of the traps.
“To be next to those players is a real honour,” Rice said yesterday. “It’s happened so fast. When I was coming through at 18 or 19, the older heads used to say to me, ‘Your career goes so fast’. I used to look at them and think, ‘What are you going on about? I’ve got ages’.
“But now, I’m 25, time is really going fast, 50 caps, loads of Premier League games. I’m just trying to enjoy every minute of it and be the best I can be.”
There can be a strange, almost backhandedness to praising reliability, the insinuation that in lieu of something more exciting to shout about, a player’s best quality lies simply in always turning up. The profile of footballer among the aforementioned list of brisk half-centurions, though, tells a different story, and while Rice may not quite represent the same electrifying talent as a young
Owen, the pigeonholing of the Arsenal midfielder as a ‘Steady Eddie’ that always did him a disservice has been well and truly dismantled this term.
Yesterday, he spoke at length about his growth under Arteta, about learning to play as a more advanced No8, as well as his preferred No6 role, and the offensive streak that always bubbled beneath the surface but has now burst through, returning six goals and six assists in the league this season.
It is a development that has given Southgate food for thought, with questions now over whether deploying Rice as the deepest of his midfield three may be something of a waste. Certainly, there was irony in hearing Rice discuss his club partnership with Jorginho, the player who eventually wrestled control from England’s midfield in the final of Euro 2020, and the kind that, even now, Southgate still lacks.
“The way he plays, the way he uses his brain, the way he picks passes around the box, he just he can make passes no one else can see,” Rice said of his team-mate. “He’s just so good to play with. You feel really secure playing with him.”
Short of a recall for the out-ofsorts Kalvin Phillips, tonight’s expected experiment with Rice and teenager Kobbie Mainoo as a midfield pair appears Southgate’s final shot at recreating the same balance, not that Arteta will be thrilled at his record signing turning out again ahead of Sunday’s crucial title clash against Manchester City.
Rice’s attacking potential could be the key to satisfying both the critics and the nagging conservatism that, with inarguably good results, has tended to dictate Southgate’s team selection in major tournament knockout games. Time to unlock it in an England shirt before the summer, though, is running out.