Rice: You need your best players on the pitch at all times

Declan Rice says Arsenal need to avoid more costly disciplinary issues if they are to challenge at the top of the table this season.

The England international was full of praise for the way his teammates battled at Bournemouth this afternoon but after William Saliba’s red card on the half-hour mark, the Gunners crumbled under pressure from the home side who ran out deserved 2-0 winners.

Here’s what Rice had to say when he faced questions from Sky Sports.

On the nature of the defeat…

The matter of the fact is, we’ve kicked ourselves in the foot three times now this season in eight games. We’ve got away with it twice, home to Brighton, away to City, but not all the time luck can go your way. In the end tonight, Bournemouth kept probing and they won 2-0. Look, I’m proud of us as a group of players for fighting and believing as we do, to believe we can win even with 10 men. I thought we played really well even with 10 men but the naivety of it is, we’ve got to stop making mistakes. We want 11 players for 90 minutes, that wins you football matches. That’s the way I’m seeing it today.

On why Arsenal struggled to replicate the performance with 10 men earlier in the campaign…

To be honest with you, with 10 men, we showed a lot of character and personality to stay in the game, like I said, the big chance was the one Martinelli had, listen the keeper has made a great save, he’s read Martinelli’s shot, they go up the other end a minute later, but a routine, that we’re usually really strong at, has done us. There are no regrets tonight other than the fact we can’t keep making silly mistakes, especially if you want to compete and be at the top at the end of the season. You need your best players on the pitch at all times, it then gives the other players a mountain to climb as well when you’re down to 10 men. The belief in the group of players is so, so high. We’ve just spoken in there as a group, it’s such a big month coming up, we’ll stick together. This is football, this is what happens, it’s a roller coaster game, it’s an up and down journey, it’s never going to be perfect, but the most important thing is we stick together and we’ll go in the right direction.