Declan Rice has expressed his admiration towards a certain Manchester City player.
Being one of the most technically secure midfielders in the Premier League, perhaps City are a team that Rice has always rated highly.
It would not be a surprise if the Arsenal talisman even studied a lot of the Sky Blues players’ games to improve the standard of his displays.
Declan Rice hails “fantastic” Rodri
Ultimately, to be the best, it is key to analyse how the best operate and with Manchester City winning five out of the last six Premier League titles, who better for any player to study than them?
Over the years, City have had a whole host of elite performers to whom even players from rival clubs have had to hail.
Despite being a Manchester United academy graduate, Scott McTominay named Yaya Toure as one of his inspirations and expressed his fondness towards him.
Now, Declan Rice has also shared his experience of meeting Rodri on holiday in Ibiza while singing his praises of him as a fellow holding midfielder.
“He was with a group of friends and we were next to him and as footballers, when you see other footballers out, you always end up talking and it was great to talk to him. I’m a big admirer of him”, he said in an interview with Sky Sports.
“Like I just said to you before we started speaking, people are always going to compare us. That’s what people have to talk about and write about but I don’t see it as that. I’m a great admirer of his game.”
“He’s playing for Man City, I’m playing for Arsenal, we’re battling it out. He’s a fantastic player, he plays game after game, he’s got the trophies to his name as well, I’ll never say a bad word about him.”
Declan Rice also touched on how both he and Rodri admire each other’s games.
“I think there’s a lot of respect there and I think on Sunday, there’ll be a lot of respect as well. We’ll go to battle for 90 minutes but after, we’ll shake hands and again, it’ll be a pleasure to share the pitch with him.”
Rice would be helped by studying the Manchester City midfielder’s game
In January, Steve Sidwell claimed that Declan Rice would admit that he is not a superior player to Rodri.
While Rice did not directly admit that, he did recently name the Spaniard as the standout number six in world football and perhaps he feels his counterpart at the Etihad Stadium is a level above him.
But for the Englishman to hit the same heights as Rodri, he must analyse how the latter manages to ensure that the game goes through him, whether it be for Manchester City or Spain.
Similarly, how the former Atletico Madrid anchor ups his performances at the biggest of stages is also a lesson Declan Rice can take in terms of improving his mental profile as a midfielder.
Even if Rice backs himself to be better than Rodri, there is no shame in learning from one of the best players in the world.