Jamie O’Hara has labelled Declan Rice performance for Arsenal in yesterday’s Community Shield as an average performance.
Arsenal picked up their first piece of silverware of the new campaign. This comes as they overcame Manchester City on penalties yesterday.
Mikel Arteta opted for a midfield three of Thomas Partey, Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard. That is with Kai Havertz moving further forward to replace the injured Gabriel Jesus and play the false 9 role.
Speaking on TalkSPORT, O’Hara was discussing Rice’s display. That was with an Arsenal fan and claimed he barely noticed Rice was on the pitch.
What Jamie had to say about Declan Rice
He went on to say:
“He comes off late in the game, what did you make of his performance? I’ll be honest, I didn’t even realise he was playing,” the former Tottenham midfielder said.
I’ll tell you right now, I played centre-mid. If you go unnoticed, it means you’ve been bang average, that’s not good enough.”
Rice did have a quiet afternoon as he played in a slightly more advanced role. That is because with Partey coming back into the side.
But the Englishman didn’t put a foot wrong on the day. He will need time to adjust to Arteta’s system.
Of course, Arsenal broke the British transfer record to sign Rice. And ofcourse his displays will likely come under massive scrutiny this season.
Yet, Mikel Arteta will be happy with how the former West Ham skipper has settled in so far. It is still early days in terms of his Arsenal career
