Pundit Jamie Carragher has hailed Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice after his performance against Sheffield United.
Fans anticipated a convincing Arsenal win but this might have even been beyond those expectations.
Arsenal were rampant in the first half, taking a 5-0 lead before half-time.
The Gunners cooled off a little in the second half but still found the net once more with Ben White finding the net.
Arsenal just can’t stop scoring right now and we are seeing Declan Rice consistently make a huge impact in the final third.
Jamie Carragher hails Declan Rice
We saw Rice make a huge impact against West Ham United last month, bagging a goal and two assists.
Rice’s set-piece ability has really come to the fore of late and he picked up another assist against Newcastle United last weekend.
Rice got himself on the scoresheet again on Monday night, firing a low drive into the net as he continues to excel going forward.
The England international is often viewed as being a defensive midfield player, but he is really showing off his attacking qualities this season.
Pundit Jamie Carragher has now moved to praise Rice, telling Sky Sports (04/03, 10:20pm) that he actually thinks Rice’s passing is ‘underrated’.
Carragher thinks Rice has been unfairly criticised in the past for not impacting the game enough going forward.
Now showing his quality in an attacking sense, Carragher thinks that Rice’s passing range and goalscoring ability can be viewed as a little under-appreciated.
“You can’t have a go at Declan Rice for not scoring enough goals if he played number one at West Ham, in a team who liked to counter-attack and sit in, always going to be difficult. He then comes to Arsenal, he’s at the base of a midfield three, so his job is to sit there!”
“So I didn’t understand the criticism, but I always felt that he had the ability to do that and so did his manager, and we’re seeing it now. Sometimes he’s playing as a high eight, a high position. His passing is very underrated and, hopefully, as time goes on, we’ll be talking about his goalscoring ability being underrated as well,” he added.
The way to know that Rice’s price tag was a good deal is that nobody even brings up the fee anymore.
Yes, Arsenal paid a huge price for Rice, but he is running the midfield alongside Martin Odegaard.
If you want Rice to sit in front of a back four, he can do it, if you want him to be a box-to-box player, he can do it.
Rice is becoming the driving force of this Arsenal team and maybe his technical ability does deserve a little more praise having taken his game to another level this season.
