Morning all.
The news to start the day is that Declan Rice’s absence from our midweek trip to Milan was due to a broken toe. Mikel Arteta said ‘foot injury’ in the build-up, but having gone through that song about one thing being connected to another thing, I can confirm toes are part of feet.
I’ve seen a lot of speculative reporting, about how he is ready to ‘play through the pain’ for both Arsenal and England, and I’ll admit I think 50% of that is admirable, and 50% of it is ridiculous. You don’t need to me to specify. I guess it depends how broken it is, and which toe it is, and I don’t think we’ll get that level of detail from Mikel Arteta when he meets the press today.
Nevertheless, it gives him something of a headache going into Sunday’s game against Chelsea. If we patch Rice up and he plays, will England deem him fit enough to play in the two games they have during the upcoming Interlull? Will Rice himself want to play in those games if he gets through Sunday ok? He seems like the kind of character who would, even if the best thing for him might be sit it all out for a few weeks and let his toe get better.
And perhaps this segues nicely into a wider issue about his form this season. When the collective isn’t functioning as well as it can, it can become quite difficult to properly assess the levels of individuals. A rising tide lifts all boats etc etc, but what happens when it goes out? When you look at the Arsenal squad this season, there aren’t too many players who you would say have hit their best form. Even Bukayo Saka, with his prodigious output, hasn’t played as consistently well as he can, but he’s so good he can swim against that tide and still deliver end product.
Rice hasn’t necessarily been bad, but has he been anywhere near as good as he was last season? No. I think what we’re seeing with him, and perhaps a couple of others, is a classic post-summer tournament hangover. He went all the way to the final of the Euros with England after a 51 game season for Arsenal in which only Gabriel and William Saliba played more minutes. He missed out on the title with us, which we know really hurt him and the others, and then lost the final of a major international tournament. There has to be a psychological fatigue, at the very least.
Until this week, the only game he didn’t play for us in the Premier League this season was the one he was suspended for after that absurd red card against Brighton, and he sat out the EFL Cup tie against Preston. For England so far he played 90 minutes against Ireland, Greece, and Finland, and another 85 minutes against the Finns. Should it be any surprise that he’s been affected by that schedule?
I mentioned a couple of others. William Saliba played more minutes than any Arsenal player last season, went to the semis of the Euros, and he’s been a little below his best at times. Even Mikel Merino needs to be in this conversation, because while not a 90 minute every game player for Spain, was with them all the way to the final this summer. He then had no pre-season, got an injury when he arrived which has hindered his adaptation, so it’s somewhat understandable he looks a little off the pace.
I do think there’s an interesting conversation to be had about him (we had one in the Arsecast yesterday), and Tim touches on some of it and his position in his latest column, but it’s worth considering those aspects which are probably explanations to some of his early struggles, if you can call them that. It’s also really early to make any definitive judgement about a player, he’s got just 400 minutes under his belt so far, but if there’s obvious room for improvement, we have to be fair and say there are some mitigating circumstances.
Back to Rice, and in an ideal world, we’d take no chances with him on Sunday, keep him out of the England squad, and let him rest up properly before we go again after the Interlull. Our need for a good result on Sunday is obvious though, and we probably have a better chance if he’s in the team. However, that’s predicated on a Declan Rice that can play at 100%, not someone inhibited by pain and injury, so it’s going to be a tricky one for Arteta to make a judgement on. We’ll see if he says anything about in his press conference later on
We’ll have coverage of that over on Arseblog News, as attention now turns to Sunday and a game Arsenal badly need to find a way to win.
For now, have a good one.
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