Deep Dive: Declan Rice

Having fought off relegation in 2019/20, West Ham United had a phenomenal turnaround last season, finishing in 6th place to secure a spot in the Europa League and as of writing this, are in the same place and only two points behind 5th placed team Manchester United. A key reason for the Hammers’ success has been their captain and leader Declan Rice whose steady improvement over the last few years has made him one of the best in the league in his position. The 23-year-old’s combative style and midfield presence caught the eye of England manager Gareth Southgate and thus, was granted a starting berth in their run to a 2nd place finish in the Euros last year.

But now, Rice’s stock has risen so much so that multiple top clubs such as Manchester United and his former club Chelsea have been interested in his services. This deep dive will look at the midfielder’s skillset and why his game is suitable for the best clubs in the world.

General Overview

As with the other two deep dives I have written, we will first look at a statistical overview of Declan Rice’s output in three categories: scoring, creation, and defence.

The radar above outlines the 23-year-old’s playstyle well, showcasing his fantastic ball-carrying ability, high defensive IQ, and decent passing. Question marks about his passing in the past have been fair but the data suggests there have been improvements made. Both his pass accuracy and final third pass completions are fantastic and even his progressive passing is now above average. Naturally, as a defensive midfielder, his effect on creating and scoring goals will be low, especially considering his midfield partner Tomáš Souček is given the freedom to attack given his goalscoring threat. So, from a data perspective, Rice is close to being a complete defensive midfielder but let’s look at the match footage and see whether that’s the case.

Defence

To start, we will look at Rice’s area of expertise, which is in defence. Firstly, he leverages his physical advantages greatly to influence the opposition. The midfielder has a great frame to bully players off the ball or use his length to either steal in for a last-ditch interception or tackle the ball. In addition to his size and strength, Rice’s stamina is world-class, allowing him constantly chase players or recover in time to delay the opposition’s attack.

However, what makes sets Rice apart is that he can combine his physical gifts with phenomenal defensive awareness. His understanding of situations and space is second to none and it all starts with his constant scanning. He can scan over both shoulders and does so every two to three seconds, which means he has a constant internal map of his teammates and the opposition. A lot of this good work that he does goes unnoticed because his awareness allows him to be in the right position at the right time and avoid getting into problems in the first place.

His scanning and situational awareness come in handy when he’s defending in the box. The ex-Chelsea academy player is a fantastic cut-back defender as he’s able to position himself superbly most of the time. His recognition of off-ball runs is also exceptional, making sure to either pick them up himself or pointing at his teammates to tag onto the opposition to avoid them receiving the ball.

Similarly, it allows him to be an amazing interceptor of the ball, which is perhaps the best part of his defence. He recognises and then processes the opposition’s body positioning and eyes as well as the weight and placement of the touch of the ball extremely quickly.

With his style, there does come a minor drawback. Since he likes to stay on his toes and gamble on interceptions, there may be a chance he can get caught out of position like in the example below. It should be noted that this is only a small inconvenience since the defenders behind him offer another line of defence so most of the time, the attacks caused because of his gambles lead to nothing of note.

His impact on the defensive end translates well from the pitch to the data. In the graph below, he ranks quite high when it comes to winning the ball back via tackles or interceptions compared to Europe’s elite. These numbers are not adjusted for possession though, which is to the benefit of Rice’s statistical impact. This is because West Ham are a team that have lower possession numbers than most, which means their players have more opportunities to make tackles and interceptions than most other teams.

Rice’s understanding of the game defensively combined with his motor allows him to press well as well. When pushed higher into the number 8 role you can see the intensity, timing, and technique in his pressing clearly, highlighting his positional versatility.

Given his deeper position, he isn’t required to do it consistently hence why his pressing numbers are low and why his aptitude in pressing is underrated by the data. The graph below showcases pressing numbers that aren’t adjusted for possession, which does peg him down a touch, but the positive is that he is in the upper end of recovering the ball — another testament to his defensive IQ.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to his skillset in this department as there are some small weaknesses in Rice’s defensive arsenal. Firstly, he can get dragged out of the middle when teams overload players in between the lines. The England international will often tend to pick up a player beside him, so he decides to try and block the passing lane to him or pressure him. This leaves quite a bit of space between him and Souček, allowing a striker to drop in between them to pick up the ball.

In addition to that, Rice’s lacks speed so on the occasion he is forced to defend wide areas, he can struggle. When he can position himself in front of a winger out wide, he can hold his own, but he gets caught out when he must try and keep with a player who is already on the move.

Those two issues are only minor and the positives on this end far outweigh the negatives. The data displays a decent profile on his capability, but I feel they underrate his true defensive talent because his defensive know-how and leadership are attributes that scale well to any elite team. To summarise, the video below encapsulates all the defensive tools that the England international has to offer.

Creation

The importance of being able to control and dictate play from deep in midfield should not be understated. It allows the attacking players to be able to receive the ball higher up the pitch and influence the attack closer to goal. Not only that, having a deep threat will create more space for the team in possession as the opposition will have to commit at least a player to stop them from creating better opportunities for their team.

West Ham choose to go about progression from deep differently though, usually moving the ball higher up the pitch using wide combinations or long balls to the top. This means Rice is left playing the role of someone who must be safe in possession and circulating it to the more creative players on the team. While this was a role that suited the Hammers captain, and still does, it doesn’t take advantage of his full playmaking ability.

Perhaps the best way Rice influences the match going forward is by using his ball carrying. This has always been a staple in his game, especially in bringing the ball up in space. His frame means he can shield players off when they pressure him and can use long strides to generate space between him and the opponent.

He can beat players off the dribble if there is space either behind or beside the opposition so he can knock the ball into that area and leverage his physical tools to keep the ball. However, in close quarters, he tends to lose the ball because his ball control is subpar, most likely due to his height and build. Shifting the ball to his other foot is his go-to move to try and wriggle out of pressure, but defenders at that level are usually quick to read that.

Tightening up on his ball control and the addition of feints to his dribbling repertoire would make Rice an almost unstoppable ball carrier because he would be a threat in both short and long distances. This is further backed up by the data too as the graph below demonstrates his press resistance.

While he scores relatively well in terms of the lack of turnovers here, he does rarely pass under pressure in comparison to most other midfielders in Europe, which is perhaps a reason why he doesn’t turn the ball over much.

Normally when looking at dribbling, it’s often associated with chance creation and the graph below highlights the relationship between both attributes. However, given his position, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he doesn’t rank well and those that do, are deployed in more attacking roles.

A more accurate representation of his ball control with regards to the data is to look at the overall impact Rice has on keeping possession. In the graph below, it’s clear to see the West Ham captain’s impact on keeping the ball due to his amazing defensive work. But his competence in carrying the ball is what elevates him as it’s rare to see players being able fulfil both duties at such a high level.

Whilst his ball-carrying skill has been great since his introduction to first-team football, his passing has been subpar. However, over this season he has gotten better in this department, which is showcased not only on the pitch but with the numbers too. Previously, Rice was too safe in possession, opting to go short most of the time rather than playing progressive passes. Whilst this can still be the case at times, he’s become better at picking and choosing moments to be riskier and more advanced with his pass selection. This is backed by the numbers as he has had an uptick in progressive passes per game but also pass accuracy compared to last season, which is a positive surprise since both numbers tend to have an inverse relationship (i.e., higher progressive passes = lower pass accuracy).

In terms of passing skill, Rice has shown a good variety of distances with his passes. Naturally, he can play short passes well, but he’s become very adept at making long switches from the left-hand side of the pitch to the right back. He doesn’t have the same comfort in switching to the left-back from the right side of the pitch though as he’s more well versed in the left side of a double pivot.

With the amount of good attacking talent that West Ham have, line-breaking passes should be easy to make for Rice and he does so quite well. When he or the receiver is in space, he’s more than comfortable playing straight passes into their feet but he still misses good opportunities on occasion for safer choices.

He also hasn’t shown that he can recognise let alone make passes that elite playmakers routinely make. The lack of deception and creativity in his passing limits his ceiling as a playmaker as those are tools that would allow him to manipulate and unlock the opposition’s defence.

In the case that he does see a good opportunity, the execution of the pass can be lacking. Mostly, it’s the weight of the pass that lets him down as he can make it difficult for his teammate to receive the ball. The example below highlights this well as there was too much height on the pass, which results in Souček losing the ball.

As mentioned earlier, the 23-year-old tended to be very safe on the ball and not make more advanced passes. This is still an issue for him at times as he loves to play the way he is facing, which is usually to the defence. Fortunately for him, West Ham allow him to drop into the left centre-back position in build-up situations so that their main area of progression, the full-backs, can push up the pitch. The main reason for having a midfielder drop into that space is to aid progression out wide and open the space in the middle. However, even in these situations, he likes to play back to his defenders for a safe pass rather than take the onus to push the play forward.

His pass selection becomes much riskier when the team needs a goal, and the match is in its final stages. In addition to that, the completion rate of those high-risk passes are also quite good, which shows signs of positive impact on the ball that can translate well to elite teams.

Passing in final stages

Overall, his passing has improved to a very good level, especially in terms of completing them into the final third. The graph below displays how he’s up there with the elite deep-lying playmakers in not only final third passes but in limiting turnovers.

Once he has released the ball, it’s common for him to make a third man run, which teams can rarely pick up. His off-ball movement adds versatility to his game and allows him to be a good box-to-box player, which brings similar advantages that his ball carrying from deep does.

It’s normal for him to do this throughout the game as both he and Souček are both box-to-box players under Moyes. However, the latter gets more freedom to do so given his goal threat, leaving Rice to anchor the midfield and provide cover for the defence. This works fine but there are times Rice gets a little eager to join the attack once releasing the ball when Souček is already in an advanced position and unable to rotate to Rice’s original position as a screener for the defence.

Scoring

For a midfielder whose job is to sit deep, there is very little opportunity to have an impact on goalscoring but there are characteristics that Rice has that make him a decent threat.

He has had some success from long-distance shots this season, scoring a goal against Aston Villa and coming close on a couple of other occasions. However, most of the shots come from far out and those are worth very little in terms of chance quality.

It does have to be said though that he chooses decent moments to shoot in such as if he’s in acres of space and he is unable to find his teammates.

Given some of the good long shots he’s taken, he would be an ideal candidate for being stationed outside the box on corners for the Irons especially given his defensive repertoire in tandem with his shooting. This would allow the team to stop counterattacks if the ball does fall to him on the edge of the area as he can shoot and relieve the pressure on the team. In case the opposition does come away with the ball, Rice is more likely to delay the attack or retrieve the ball back.

However, Moyes usually has Rice placed on the front post to take advantage of his height and great heading ability. His headed flick-ons provide a good amount of value for West Ham in corners and the delivery from the corner commonly goes to him in the hopes of fulfilling their corner routine.

Perhaps the biggest impact that Rice can have on goalscoring is his ability off the ball. His competence in off-ball situations and the dynamic between him and Souček have already been discussed so there is no need to go over that again. The intelligence he has on deciding when to make runs and giving him the freedom to do so would make him a dangerous option in a cutback situation that most elite teams routinely find a way to pull off.

Final Remarks

In conclusion, Declan Rice is a near-complete midfielder whose wide variety of skills allow him to play multiple roles in the middle of the park. Doubts about his passing have been silenced to an extent this season as his jump as an on-ball creator has elevated to the point that the best clubs in the world should have his name shortlisted for a midfield position. With rumours in the past, the Hammers have been quoted wanting a figure around £100m, which even with the improvements he has made is too steep. However, it is clear to see why Moyes and the owners want that much money for him because they will find it very difficult to replace a player of his ilk.

His skill set is extremely portable to elite teams as great defensive-minded leaders that are good on the ball would fit well next to any type of player. However, if elite teams want to look at signing him, they should maybe wait one more season to see whether his passing can take a further leap as becoming an elite playmaker would cement him as a £100m+ player rather than take that risk that he could develop into one when spending such a huge sum.