Declan Rice became Arsenal’s record signing after forging a reputation as the Premier League’s best defensive midfielder, but Mikel Arteta has different ρłɑɴs in store for the England man.
Mikel Arteta has hinted thatDeclan Ricecould be set to play a more advanced role in his team after making the dream start to life atArsenal.
Rice forged a reputation as one of thePremier League’s best defensive midfielders during his time atWest Ham, also taking on that role for theEnglandnational team. But Arteta appears to have different ρłɑɴs in store for the 24-year-old, who is the Gunners’ record signing.
Arsenal played their final pre-season friєɴԀly of the summer on Wednesday night,securing a 1-1 draw against Monaco. Rather than lining up as the most defensive midfielder in Arteta’s 4-3-3 formation, Rice was selected in the left channel, a role previously occupied byGranit Xhaka.
That afforded him the license to ƄօмƄ forward and he narrowly missed out on scoring just after the hour mark when he saw a shot blocked by Chrislain Matsima. Rice’s new-found qualities going forward could be seen more regularly as Arteta plots a title challenge.
“He played more advanced today. He played more as an attacking midfielder today. It was the first time that he’s played there and he’s in the journey to get back to his best and adapt to the team,” the Arsenal boss said.
“He has the versatility to play different roles and it’s something that we want to do to maximise the quality of other players who have the ability to play together. We will use him in different positions.”
“There are certain rotations that we want, especially to adapt to the quality of the players that we have and make sure that they are comfortable occupying certain spaces. There were a lot of changes.
“You could see sometimes in the dynamic and in the timing that we were arriving that it wasn’t perfect, we were allowing certain spaces especially when they had time on the ball and then we had to defєɴԀ open spaces, but these are things that we will adjust.”
At one point this summer it appeared that Thomas Partey would move on, with Rice replacing the Ghanian as the anchor in Arsenal’s midfielder. An exit for Partey is no longer on the horizon though, with Arteta instead keen to find a way to get both him and Rice in his starting line-up.
It is a system that could be used again on Sunday, when the Gunners take onManchester Cityin the Community Shield. And Arteta is keen to build on the work his side have done this summer.
“Yes, very good,” he said of the performance against Monaco. “Especially for a lot of players that haven’t had many minutes in pre-season and as well, for the new players to play for the first time at Emirates Stadium it was special.
“You could feel the atmosphere and how excited the fɑɴȿ were. In terms of the game, we struggled a little bit to dominate completely and have the game that we want, we had much better periods in the second half.
“I think we were still a bit leggy and jet legged from when we came, we trained really hard the last three days to be fair and we wanted that task for us, when we are not fresh enough to play, how can we compete. So, it was a good test for us and we’re happy with the outcome.”
