A visibly frustrated Declan Rice says Arsenal shouldn’t panic despite ending 2023 with a second consecutive defeat.
The Gunners were hoping to bounce back following Wednesday’s loss to West Ham but they couldn’t come up with the goods at Fulham as Marco Silva’s side recovered from Bukayo Saka’s early strike to win 2-1.
Here’s what the England international had to say when he faced the Sky Sports cameras.
On the performance…
Very disappointing. Very tough to take. Obviously, it’s not good enough from us again today. Obviously, the last two results have not been what we’ve required or been setting over the course of the season. We’ve been performing very well up until the last two games. Especially off the back of the draw at Liverpool, we felt like we could really kick on, but with two defeats it’s a tough one to swallow.
On what’s gone wrong in the last two games…
In the game against West Ham, we 30 shots and so many touches in the opposition box and just couldn’t put it away. And today, when you go 1-0 up, you need to take more control. You need to have more self-belief, you need to have more desire, your mentality needs to be better. We need to demand more from each other when you’re pushing up that end of the table.
On why the team couldn’t kick on…
I’m not saying we didn’t do it because we still tried to push for more, but ultimately Fulham have won the game and you’ve got to look at why they’ve won the game. Once we went 1-0 up, we’ve got to push on again and we’ve got to go for more because in this league there’s no room to mess up because there are so many good teams around you and we want to be pushing at the top end of the table. It’s a tough one to take today.
On what was said at half time…
We dominated the ball. We played some really good stuff, but it was just, again, not putting the ball in the back of the net. Fulham defended really well. It was about going out second half and really pushing. We knew today three points would put us back on top and that was the message at half-time, that we keep pushing, we keep fighting until but the goal went to Fulham and we couldn’t we couldn’t get one back. It’s two defeats in a row and it’s now time to reset and we go again.
On how far Arsenal are from being the league’s top team…
To be honest, I don’t really look at the table. Oviously, there’s a lot of a lot of media who talk and say Arsenal will win the league this year and Arsenal are better this year and what not but we don’t get involved in that. We just try to take every game as we can, one by one. Like I said, we’ve been doing really well, we have been at the top of the table and that’s where we want to be. There’s been a blip in the road but there’s no room to panic, there’s still so many games to go. We need to stay positive. It’s not the time to be negative. We’ve got a great manager, a great set of players. And we’ll keep going.
This re-iteration of “dominating” the ball and having control is an obsession borderline addiction. Fucking dominating the ball, just score goals and win games.
Your username is the only reason I became an Arsenal fan. Except for last season, Arteta has for me been the antithesis of what I loved about the club. His obsession with everything being done exactly as he wants is one of my biggest turn offs from people. And for me this has translated into the slow, ponderous football we’re seeing today. The players seem to not be using any of their creativity in trying to make things happen. Our front 3 this season never, ever, ever switch positions or drop into spaces to create confusion for our opponents. Our… Read more »
Absolutely. Arsenal is NOT Manchester City, we are a free flowing, goal scoring club. The fact we cheer tackles and pressing so much is odd for this club. I appreciate great defense but that is not the identity of this club, we are the club that produces the best goals in English competition history, from Bergkamp to Henry to team goals like Wislhere and Giroud.
Obviously not old enough to remember George Graham.
I agree with you. But in the process we have also made our defence, which with the addition of Rice in midfield ought to be the best, hesitant, error prone and jittery. Every aspect of the team is now negatively impacted. It makes no sense to me and I wonder how any of this makes sense to the coach.
Well being an Arsenal fan isn’t just about expecting to see amazing football. In our history we have played many different styles, to great success at times.
In addition to this, we are in an era where the opposition constantly monitor, analyse everything we’re doing (and vice versa). We have to adapt to different ways of playing.
So yes, of course it’s great to see exciting football, especially if you’re winning, but when we’re not just get behind the team I say, rather than get all negative just because we’ve lost a couple of games without playing great.
We haven’t played well all season. People we dismissing the early games because we were getting results. Results don’t matter at the beginning, performances do, because those performances set the tone for the season.
“Just score goals and win games” lets get you to Colney quick, I think youve cracked it.
Mate, football is simple, it’s when you over-complicate it that you stray away from what works. Scoring goals is our biggest issue.
Thanks for sharing this analysis. Before I’d received your insight I’d just been telling people we should “kick ball good” but this give us a much clearer path to success.
Right Snark!
Ergh this reminds me of the Mertesacker days, rolled out for media duties after a terrible loss saying ‘we must come back stronger’
A lackluster performance, could there be a bug in the camp ? Maybe Arteta trying to show he needs upgrades this transfer window or they overdosed on the sherry trifle either way poor showing.
Bit bemused with the “we played some really good stuff” comment. We were dreadful.
I thought the same. He must’ve been watching (playing?) a different game.
Jesus has to start scoring. Eddie has more goals than him. Willian has more goals than him! You can’t win the league without front players hitting double digits by this point in the season.
Is there something going behind the scenes? Players seem to have either downed tools or are too scared to think or do beyond what manager instructs them to do lest they be frozen out of the team.
Hence the slow ponderous build up. Even at its worst, Wenger’s teams played with more zip. Even the back passes are labored these days.
..or we’re just in a bit of bad form. Like what happens to all teams in the history of football
We’ve not got enough players to freeze people out 🙂
All these great players amount to nothing if they choose when to to turn up. Currently 50%
And can we pin that ball every now and then towards out 6’4 midfielder inside the box? That would give them something to think about.