Declan Rice has called on his teammates to “show some balls” as Arsenal gear up for a season-defining clash at Manch115ter City.
While Mikel Arteta’s side starts the day top of the table thanks to eight consecutive wins in the league, a slip-up at the Etihad, where the Gunners haven’t won since 2015, will almost certainly lead to familiar accusations that they don’t have what it takes to win the title.
The club were labelled “bottlers” after surrendering an eight-point advantage last season but Rice, who joined the club in the summer, insists “this is a new Arsenal now.”
“This is an Arsenal that have learned from last year, a group of players that are learning, getting older, more experienced,” he told the Guardian.
“The club bought some great players over the summer as well, who have all had a massive impact. We are ready to change that barrier about what people say about Arsenal.
“The players were gutted last year that they lost the league being eight points ahead. You don’t hear them speak too much about it but you can just see there is a difference this year in terms of mentality and mindset.”
The midfielder, who wore the captain’s armband for England during the Interlull, also stressed that he has no qualms with being labelled an underdog heading into Sunday’s showdown. The bookies have the home side’s chances of winning at 48% while the implied probability of a Gunners win is 25%.
“I’d rather go there and be an underdog and prove it to everyone that we can be the team we really want to be,” he said.
“The worst thing is being spoken up in such a big way, there’s such a big expectation on you and then you don’t perform. I’d rather people say we’re this and we’re that, and us go there and shock people and show them how good we are.
“It will be down to the 11 who go out on the pitch to really show some balls, show we can perform at the biggest level and the biggest pressure moments.”
City are unbeaten in 38 matches at home in all competitions, winning 33 and drawing five.
Let’s see if that’s still the case come the end of the day.
They were labelled bottlers by w*nkers. If you lose Saliba, Tomi and Partey at important times of the season you will suffer. Criticise squad depth then, for sure. Big match today, Easter Sunday, let’s pray we can do it!
Inshallah
100% this. The lazy “bottlers” narrative annoys me so much. Man City’s backup players would be guaranteed starters for most other clubs because they cheat to pay for them. Last year, Foden – who the moron pundits who call us bottlers all claim is better than our best player – was a backup player for them. We didn’t break 115 financial rules when we built our squad, so our team and results were actually affected by injuries. In a league where Man City had to follow the rules, they would have dropped points when they had injuries (like every other… Read more »
Manch115ter City is elite banter name. Kudos blogs, it should be making its debut on Twitter soon and become widely used. We need to remind those cheats everyday what they are.
It is a name on/in making. It could be 112 or 224. Whatever
Easy 3 points. Let’s end the match before half time and give some minutes to Nwaneri, Elneny and Cedric.
All eras come to end. Herein begins Citehs. Arise Gooners!
I have to eat humble pie.
I liked Rice before we signed him but I honestly thought £100m was a massive gamble.
What a fool I was. I know it’s a cliche now, but he was an absolute, Gucci shirt in TK Maxx, sell your bitcoin in 2021, Michael Burry shorting the housing market, bona fide bargain!
Read his interview in the Guardian. I just love him. How can you not??
Whatever happens today (as I pray at the alter of the Bergkamp, TH14 the Holy goats, amen) I absolutely love this team.
Come on you gunners!!!
Wish I could up vote this comment more than once! 💯
….And he shall return to his former home ground, arising from the deaths, to punish the vile ones who once corrupted the earth….
G. Jesus / 03-31
The ester Sunday!
DAT GUY WELBZ
Future Arsenal manager