Rice hails Arsenal’s 1-0 Anfield victory as ‘performance of champions’
Declan Rice said Arsenal produced “the performance of champions” after their 1-0 win at Liverpool on Sunday in the Premier League, a game in which he supplied the pass for Kai Havertz’s 16th-minute goal. Rice singled out his side’s resilience and defensive contributions as decisive in seeing out the victory at Anfield.
Rice set up Havertz for the only goal on 16 minutes and his defensive work — his physicality and reading of the game — attracted praise. Liverpool were aggrieved after a Jürrien Timber shirt-pull on Alexander Isak in the 21st minute when a penalty was not given, and supporters at the Kop complained about Arsenal’s tactics and their way of winning free-kicks. Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya was booked for time-wasting in the 92nd minute as his teammates closed out the result.
Arsenal had won 1-0 at Nottingham Forest in their previous Premier League away match and faced criticism then for a perceived lack of creativity; after the Liverpool game the focus shifted to allegations of gamesmanship despite Arsenal posing a counterattacking threat. Rice said: “No game is plain sailing; it is always going to be tough. Looking back at that Forest game, it wasn’t the best performance but we ground it out, we won and there’s going to be more of that this season. But results like this one [at Liverpool] just make it that extra bit special so we are delighted.”
The victory was Arsenal’s first league win at Anfield since 2012, and the club have now won at four grounds where they did not prevail when securing last season’s title — the others being Villa Park, the Stadium of Light and the City Ground. Reflecting on the challenge of playing at Anfield, Rice said: “Any team who has won at Anfield in the past has never had it easy. We had to dig in and give it everything because they throw so many attacks at you. We had to be resilient and strong. It was a great win.”
Asked if Arsenal had played like champions, Rice replied: “For sure. It’s just drilled into us. What the manager [Mikel Arteta] has built at this club and the togetherness of the lads – you don’t get that performance without the lads being all together. The way the manager has everything under control, the way everyone works towards everything he wants is not like anything I’ve ever seen before. So credit to us for what we have been doing for the last few years. Now it’s a massive thing to deliver again this year.”
Dominik Szoboszlai said the margin between Liverpool and the champions was small and pointed to the Isak shirt-pull as decisive: “We are just one penalty less and that’s a big difference,” said the midfielder. Liverpool failed to register a shot on target in a Premier League home game for the first time since records began in 2003-04, according to Opta.
Andoni Iraola said he would tell Liverpool players to go down in the box, a stance Szoboszlai rejected as unrepresentative of his side. “I don’t think in this moment you can think: ‘Oh, let me wait for someone touching me and I’ll fall down,’” he said. “No, Alex is focusing on the ball and he wants to head the ball in the net … It’s a penalty. I don’t know what they expect from us, to dive or something? I don’t think we are the type of team or players to do that but from now on we might need to do it. If Alex falls down it’s a clear penalty. Timber doesn’t really care about the ball and maybe if he doesn’t pull Alex’s shirt Alex can head it in the goal.”
Arsenal moved three points clear at the summit after the win, a change to the Premier League standings confirmed by the result at Anfield.