Declan Rice is one of the few young English players who has already made a big mark at the England National Team and the Premier League. Aged 22, he has already played 132 games in the Premier League for West Ham and has capped 24 appearances for the England National Team and was one of the few players in the England squad to have played all 7 games at the recently concluded Euros 2020.
A defensive midfielder, he has been linked for a move away from West Ham for the past 2 seasons, with Chelsea and Manchester United being one of the favourites in line to acquire his services.
While I do not prefer to talk about the price tag that he comes along with, as that's not my job to assign value to players, in this article, I hope I can present a few points about Declan Rice’s gameplay that makes him special. Also, it would mostly be about the style of play United deploy in games and what issues he solves if he were to join the current team.
POSITION
Declan Rice is usually the deepest midfielder in any formation that the team plays in, but in general, he plays on the left side of the midfield pivot in case of a 4–2–3–1 or 3–5–2 or as the lone midfielder in a 4–3–3 formation.
For United as well, who have deployed this 4–2–3–1 formation for the majority of their games under Ole, you would expect Declan Rice to slot into the left side of the pivot, in front of Shaw and Maguire.. very similar to how they were set up in the English team.
DEFENSIVE ABILITIES
By using simple defensive metrics, Rice is one of the best defensive midfielders in the league. And before I bring up these metrics, it is worth noting the two contrasting seasons West Ham have had over the past two years. In the 2019/20 season, they ended 16th in the league, just above relegation, and sacked their manager Manuel Pellegrini around New Year time and replaced him with David Moyes. And in the 2020/21 season, they finished 6th position under Moyes, and the style of play in both these seasons was very different. And to talk about West Ham in the 2020/21 season, they were a team who didn’t focus on central ball progression, didn't press at all, had the lowest possession of the ball in the entire league. So keep these points in mind when I talk about Declan rice performances over the two years.
In 2019/20, Declan Rice had a lot of freedom to tackle around on the pitch; he finished the season being 4th in the list of players with the most attempted tackles (116 attempted at 53% win rate), with a majority of them coming from the defensive and midfield third. In 2020/21, though, his role was to stay deeper and maintain structure in the defence, and hence these numbers were lower, but still worth mentioning he is a solid tackler of the ball.
As you can see very clearly, the role he played in both these seasons was very different; At the same time, he was mostly deployed as a ball-winning midfielder in 2019/20, his role in 2020/21 became more of a holding midfielder, and this is further proven from the difference in the dribbles contested stat, where the stat decreased quite considerably indicating a different role he had to play in these two seasons.
Unsurprisingly, he is also the most active presser in the team(worth noting that West Ham isn’t really the best pressing team in the league), in 2019/20, he had the second most successful pressures in the league (197, highest being 199), while this number reduced considerably in 2020/21 (again, change in the style of play), he was still very effective in applying pressures in the defensive third of the field.
You can see from the below graph that Declan Rice is on top of the pile for tackles and pressures among defensive midfielders in the 2019/20 season. (Worth looking at Fred and Mctominay as well)
Other defensive metrics like interceptions and aerials, he does an excellent job as well. He stands in the 90%ile for interceptions averaging 2.09 interceptions per 90, and has a good aerial win % of 62%.
I guess that's enough of numbers, you could look at any compilation video of Declan Rice and see his defensive attributes, which are very good; in my opinion, I would like to bring my attention to one of the most underrated traits in Declan Rice game, which not many people observe, no stat can really capture, and no comp video would clip his off-ball positioning and awareness.
AWARENESS
Declan Rice's role in the centre of the pitch for West Ham has always been to cut out passes through the middle, contest the opposition, forcing them to go wide, and Declan Rice is a master in this regard. His understanding of the game, reading the opposition and cutting down passing lanes is one of the best in the league.
In the clip below, you can see his positioning to prevent easy pass lanes. West Ham loses the ball in Liverpool’s third, and Declan Rice immediately notices Firmino as a potential target for the pass and quickly runs towards him to close him down, because of which the ball is now played back to the keeper. You can notice him quickly changing his target player once Firmino is no longer the threat. This anticipation of the passing targets helps him to win a lot of tackles and interceptions in every game as well.
In the second clip, you can see how he realises that there are two unmarked players behind him, and instead of going forward for the 1v1 contest to win the header, he goes back deep to win the second ball. His decision making as to when to close down and when to stay back and protect the backline is excellent.
Calmness inside the box
Something which United really miss, Declan Rice is a very calm and composed player while defending inside his own 18-yard box. A good reader of the game, his quick thinking often helps him to be at the right spot to clear away dangerous balls in the box.
In the below clip, you can see, Rice was initially marking Armstrong(17) to prevent any cutback towards him, but once he sees the ball hasn’t gone to Armstrong, he immediately scans over his shoulder to see where the opponents are, looks are the next potential threat (and look at how he still had an eye on Armstrong) and then calmly intercepts the ball in the box.
It is something he regularly does, him in the same match, a minute later.
Anticipation
As stated before, Declan Rice anticipation of potential pass targets and threats is top class. In this clip, you can see how quickly he reacts when he sees a free unmarked opponent at the edge of the box and runs towards him and closes his down, his quick pace helps him do so very frequently in every game.
Positioning
In this clip, you can observe how he positions himself in the centre of the pitch, in a position exactly between the two probable recipients of the ball. In a body shape that allows him to react quickly to whichever side the ball is passed, this forces Southampton to go wide instead of going central.
Passing
Declan Rice is a decent passer of the ball who gets the job done. He isn't the flashy, progressive passer that perhaps everyone would have loved to be, just a decent passer who keeps it neat, simple and short.
Declan Rice’s preferred foot is right, but he is comfortable using both feet to make a pass and similar to how he scans while defending, he always scans his surroundings and moving to get space to receive the ball.
In this clip, you can look at how he makes the initial run to the edge of the box to provide himself as a passing option, then later he starts a run, realises Robbo is closing him down, checks it and goes behind to create space for a good cross that leads to a goal.
Here below is the pass map of Declan Rice for the 20/21 season, as you can see, majority of it is on the flanks generally, another showcase of the way West Ham were set up in the Premier League.
Declan Rice isn't a great progressive passer. While his stats look very abysmal, it is mostly due to the way West Ham is set up. Most of his progressive passes have come along the wing areas, distributing the ball to the wingers (Natural to the way West Ham play).
One aspect where Rice could improve is his passing under pressure, which reflects how direct he is while passing. As you can see from the graph, he isn’t the best when it comes to passing under pressure.
These numbers would obviously improve when he plays for a team with higher central possession and him being young too helps in this case, as he has time to learn as well. His current role at West Ham is to intercept and block the central progression of the ball mainly. When it comes to holding the ball, he is just there to recycle it for his teammates quickly.
His ball carrying numbers are again decent but not great(again something dominant due to his role at West Ham), but from the various analysis of his gameplay, one could say that this is one area where he has shown massive improvement over the past few seasons, and will only continue to improve in the future when he gets to see more of the ball.
While I promised to keep stats a bit aside, I am sorry I have to break it for this one last time
These are his progression and possession stats in brief from Fbref.com
If we go in deep into his passing stats, you find out that they are pretty average for a player who we are looking at for a top club
Even if we factor in the West Ham not being a good ball possessing team, these stats would at max increase by 10 more percentile maybe? This suggests passing isn't really his strength.
But if we look into his possession stats, these are, not that bad
The most important 2 points I could notice is his dribble success percentage and his ball carrying skills. Even though the attempted number of dribbles by him are low, his dribble success percentage is very very high, and for those who follow him on a good basis, know that he is a decent-good dribbler who could perhaps get better and better once he starts to see more of the ball. This would in turn improve his carrying stats in my opinion, which are already, decent.
What this shows to me that in the future, due to his poor passing skills, I expect Declan Rice to turn into a more Box to Box midfielder (a no 8) in a role very similar to what Kante has done for Chelsea in the past season, where his defensive abilities would be better utilised to win the loose balls higher up the pitch than being deployed as a holding midfielder, where it would be very difficult to build from the back especially if his passing skills do not improve considerably.
CONCLUSION AND WHERE DOES HE FIT AT UNITED
At United, it is safe to say that Declan Rice would be the best defensive player among the current set of midfielders United currently have. He would also be the only midfielder bar Matic who would stay back and help in the defensive duties of the Centre backs, while we have seen the rest of the midfielders United have preferring to be more attacking than defensive.
One reason why United fans do not want Declan Rice is his resemblance in passing stats to Mctominay. Declan Rice is a way better passer than Mctominay despite having similar stats, albeit in a lower team. The main difference between the two is the fact that Rice is a more natural Defensive midfielder who stays behind and helps in the buildup from the back (though he isn't that great) and also offers himself as a passing target by moving around and evading his markers, whereas, in the case of Mctominay, people have always observed how he doesn’t help much while building from the back and also for some reason stays in the shadow of his marker than trying to evade him and offer himself as a passing target. Rice is also the superior player defensively.
Would Rice fit into United’s Midfield?
Yes, absolutely. He has all the qualities and would be an instant starter and a huge upgrade defensively in our midfield. His in the box defending and off the ball closing of players is a trait which most of the United players lack.
Would Rice solve United’s midfield problems?
Yes and No. He solves a good chunk of United’s defensive problems like stopping counter-attacks, defending crosses in the box, his disengagement from duels would also help the Centre backs from getting exposed(something which we see happening a lot of times with Fred and Mctominay or Pogba overcommitting into challenges in the middle of the pitch, leaving to vast free area behind in front of the centre backs).
What he doesn’t really solve is United’s problems in Central ball progression. While lesser defensive duties from Fred would allow him to be the main outlet of ball progression (Pogba gone, do you reckon?), with both Fred and Rice mainly operating from the left side of the pivot, it would be difficult to see how their partnership would work out. Ideally, you would prefer a good ball passing/carrying number 8 as well to pair with Rice ( with reports suggesting if Pogba leaves, united could go and buy two midfielders), it remains to see how this problem can be solved (hoping Rice improves as well with more ball possession if he joins United)
Does he help United to switch to a more attacking 4–3–3?
As a lone DM, while being good defensively is needed, it is expected that this number 6 would be both the inlet and outlet for ball progression from the Centre Backs to the Advanced forwards. They should preferably be players who are comfortable dealing with large possessions of the ball and be a good passer, not to mention be press resistant as well, none of which are currently Declan Rice’s biggest strengths. While he could improve, and this could be a good option 2 years down the line, the current abilities of Rice wouldn’t suit him to be as the lone DM for a top side like United.
Would I take him at United ?
Yes, absolutely. Declan Rice’s defensive abilities alone are an excellent reason to buy him. He is a workhorse off the ball—a good leader and an intelligent player I can trust to improve as he grows older. While the rumoured price being circulated puts me off sometimes, I feel he would be a perfect upgrade in our midfield and a guy who could be why United could concede a good 3–4 goals less in the coming campaigns. Pair him with a good complementary midfielder, and he would be class.
I guess that's the end of this very long thread. I hope you have enjoyed it and as usual, feel free to discuss or criticise the article if you feel so.
