By Tony Attwood
Being Arsenal’s most expensive player is a risky business: not just for the player but also for the manager. Just ask Unai Emery – although in his case he made a habit of bad signings. I won’t risk giving you a heart attack by listing them but we might sadly recall Suarez on loan from Barcelona and and Pepe, the £72m man from Lille. One was left wondering what sort of board of directors could we have who could employ a manager who could make such terrible signings. In the end Arsenal gave Pepe away for nothing just to get him out of the club.
These are bad memories, but fortunately are countered by a clear knowledge of the player who did most for the club in the last season: Declan Rice. Except that Rice continued to play last season while injured and is still playing for England while injured – and will presumably get to the start of next season injured.
But I suppose when a player is a club’s most expensive signing he plays on. At least we no longer have to admit that Pepe was Arsenal’s most expensive man, In facgt without Pepe Arsenal would now hardly be in debt at all, although at least he got the man who signed him sacked.
But now Rice is the most expensive player in Arsenal’s squad, and I have seen it reported that Rice has played more minutes than anyone else (when one includes internationals) since the start of 2020/1 and has had virtually no extended breaks. In fact we could be looking at a 70+ games-a-season man, and still have people questioning why he is not starting in a particular match.
But this leads to a problem: what happens when he gets injured – as surely is going to happen in the coming season. Virtually every club in the league will have a defence coach telling his team, “as soon as you get the chance, kick Rice. Let him know you are there. Then as soon as you see another of our players kick Rice, go and kick him again. Keep it up until he pulls back out of the way. Then you will be playing 11 players, rather than ten plus Superman.”
And that is how it goes, but there is a danger. Rice is so good that Arsenal don’t have a clear idea of how to play without him on the pitch. And increasingly last season opposition players were starting to follow that thought. You can either put two players on Rice, or kick him off the park.
Indeed one of the many problems with players who become regulars in either the national or club team is that managers stop thinking about what they will do if he is injured.
As for giving him a rest even when fit, that thought vanishes totally. Last season Arsenal had nine players who were involved in 50 or more games and in terms of the League he was the second most used player with 35 starts and one appearance as substitute. (Only Raya played more). Given that he will come into next season with hardly any rest through the summer, it is possible that he is going to need a break at some stage.
But now we have Gary Neville saying “You don’t rest Declan Rice,” and that might well become a standard thought among the England coaching staff.
As a result of all this Declan has admitted he has been playing through pain for months, which increases the chance that by the start of the next season he will not be fit to play – although given his attitude so far he probably will carry on playing, with talk of “managing the pain”. Which in fact sees to be something he has been doing since last Christmas.
It is an approach that simply cannot continue. Pain means an injury and not dealing with the injury makes the injury worse and worse. “Playing through pain” is no manly because ultimately it will catch up with the player. But with a player like Rice who is in demand for his club and country all the time, that moment of “dealing with it” never comes. As soon as he comes back from the WC he’ll get three weeks’ rest, and then off he goes again – and most likely the pain will return because three weeks is not enough.
The standard medical advice at this point is that the nerve that is being irritated and causing the pain needs a period of time to settle down – and clearly it is not getting enough of one. Worse, many injuries and sources of pain such as this are in essence unpredictable. The pain is not an absolute indicator of what is wrong, although players often think it is. And this sort of pain is known for stopping and starting with no obvious cause. And indeed it can be an indicator of an issue somewhere else in the body – an issue that needs investigation.
In the end pain becomes part of Declan Rice’s standard condition, and as he becomes used to handling that so his extraordinary ability will decline and we will have lost a wonderful player. That won’t matter too much for England – they go and find another – but for Arsenal it means losing their most important player.
Rice played 55 games for Arsenal last season and England keep playing him no matter what. The one person who could resolve this is Rice who could simply say, “Arsenal pay my salary, Arsenal fans back me up week after week. I owe it to them to be fit and ready for the next campaign.” And then he could stop playing for England. But I doubt it will happen.
