Declan Rice Reveals Dressing Room Inquest Following Bournemouth Defeat

By The Editor
on 21st October 2024

Declan Rice says frank words were shared in the dressing room…

Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice reveals the players shared some frank words following our first away defeat in the league this calendar year at Bournemouth on Saturday evening.

The game was marred by the sending off of William Saliba inside the first 30 minutes as he hauled down Evanilson who was sent clear by an outrageous hospital ball from Leandro Trossard.

It meant that we would now compete in a Premier League match with 10 men for the third time in eight games, something which caused a dressing room inquest after the game between the players.

Arteta’s men have a 100% win record when playing a league match with a full complement of players – proving how costly these errors have been in recent weeks.

Given the small margin for error when competing for the league title, Rice understands that this must be addressed if we’re to achieve our goals.

“I could say a million things,” the 25-year-old told Arsenal Media.

“But I think I’m proud of the players to be honest.

” I think the way we reacted again, going down to 10 men was not ideal, we knew that as a group of players, we’ve just said in there [the dressing room], that’s three times in eight games that we’ve let our standards slip and if you want to compete at the top you cannot let that happen.”

Though it’s hard to analyse the game when over two-thirds of it was played in a context that put us at a visible disadvantage, the first 30 minutes were hardly convincing.

Fans often debate who our most important player is and while we coped well without Martin Odegaard, we looked completely feeble in Bukayo Saka’s absence.

The 23-year-old carries so much of a threat that he pins teams back and is also able to carry the ball up the pitch for us which subsequently allows the team to dominate the game higher up the field.

His hamstring injury was deemed minor and one hopes we have him back for the crucial Premier League clash against Liverpool on Sunday.