Declan Rice has hailed Arsenal’s character after they came back from two goals down to draw 2-2 with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
Cole Palmer and Mykhailo Mudryk put the Blues ahead, but Rice sparked a late comeback after pouncing on a Robert Sanchez error before Leandro Trossard scored the equaliser.
And the 24-year-old was delighted with his contribution as Arsenal maintained their unbeaten start to the league season despite struggling for most of the game.
“I think the first half is probably the worst we’ve played all season, in terms of our sloppiness,” he told Sky Sports. “Not doing things in our structure, not doing things how we’ve worked on them all week.
“We have to credit Chelsea for how they played but sometimes it’s about that inner belief, that mindset that you can do it and once I got the first – it’s about driving the team on and making sure that everyone believes we can get something here.
“In the end, it’s a positive result from where we’ve come from. We were too sloppy on the ball, even my first pass I gave it away, but in the second half we showed what we’re about and to remain unbeaten it’s massively important.”
“When you look up at the clock and we’ve gone full gas the whole game, you start to run out of legs but when I latched onto that one [for the goal] we found a second bit of energy,” he added.
“The subs who came on were outstanding today. It was a massive team effort and it’s about the team always, and I think today we showed great heart and character.
“For my goal it’s not easy because you’ve got a split second decision about whether to pass or shoot, but thankfully I took it on and scored.
“I was obviously buzzing but we were still 2-1 down at that point and the most important thing was that we kicked on and found an equaliser.”
I fine turn around.
Outmuscled,Outhustled,Outpressed…. Completely smothered in midfield…feels like pochettino executed the lens playbook….the energy drop off after beating man city was alarming! Amazed Jorginho played ahead of TP…didn’t have the legs against two 100m pound DM’s… precious one point!
Excellent finish, Rice Rice baby!
Declan Rice “My man”
Has he been our player of the season so far? It’s either him or Saliba surely. I never imagined I would say this, but 100mil very well spent
This comeback might be as important as ending the Man City hoo doo in the final analysis.
I remember the invincibles – a team stronger than this iteration of Arsenal – playing some dodgy draws that season. It all adds up to the mental toughness of the team.
Declan is brilliant when he moves higher up the pitch. Very much a leader in this group already too.
My positive was us getting a point despite playing so poorly. Don’t forget the lads were up against some terrible refereeing.
I was surprised no o r really mentioned this. Cucurella did amazingly well to get to the 70th minute without a booking. Kicked Saka all over the place. Sanchez on Jesus too.
I hate to say it but Chelsea have improved since last we played them. Not enough to allow them to turn us over like that though. Tonights performance was not at an acceptable standard but hats off to the blokes for at least pulling a draw from that lacklustre performance.
Watching that cunt Mudryk was the absolute low point tonight. For fucks sake!
We’re better than this!
Onwards – upwards!
Mudryk was crossing the ball, but it looked like a nice chip over the keeper. Chelsea are not that good and it was us being poor. It would have been an easy win last year.
This performance has been coming for a while really. The front three haven’t kicked into form because of injury and even with the brilliant Declan Rice, we still need Partey.
I dey feel like who again??
Declan Rice 🍚 Impressed with him so far 💯
Declan summed it really well, did the international break have anything to do with us playing so well below par, maybe, our Brazilian trio didn’t look sharp, Odergaurds worst performance to date, Saliba and Saka coming back from injuries, the selection of Jorginho ahead of Partey, not going to blame Raya for second goal, Mudryk was teeing it up for the back post, tho Gary Neville in last 2 games again slaughtered Raya, for some reason he didn’t make much of the clanger chels keeper gifted us for our 1st, or not closing down quick enough for Trossards fine equalizer,… Read more »
This is one of those lessons our young guys need to learn. If things don’t go to the gameplan we need to quickly reorganise and find a solution. Sure we have principles of play. Keep those. But the buildup pattern isn’t working and the goalkeeper passing isn’t accurate, then we need some thing different. That could have been when Jesus dropped to help out but instead but hacked infront of the referee who did nothing. Teams are also constantly pushing the line between yellow and red, knowing that referees let stuff go in the first 15 minutes. We need to… Read more »
Or have a Captain who actually reads the game?