Declan Rice: the Irish talent

Declan Rice is one of the brightest talents of the Irish football. He just 19 years old, but already made some footprint on football.

He won the honour of the young player of the year both at West Ham United and the Republic of Ireland U17 in 2017. Also, in the last season, he just finishes behind Arnautovic at the Hammer of the Year award.

After leaving Chelsea youth team and joining the West Ham United academy, he went through all the West Ham’s youth teams. Until the under 23, where he accomplished some success, he arose the coaches’ interest at the senior team, thus he made is debut in 2017. Then he got promoted to the senior team, where he played under Slaven Bilic and David Moyes in the last season.

Although there was some discussion over his payment at the beginning of this summer, now his future at West Ham is stable. With a new manager on board, Manuel Pellegrini count on him, thus this season will be a great step in his career, therefore it is time to take a look in his abilities and playing style.

Position and playing style

Started as a centre-back with a great skill-set in technical abilities and with good physical abilities, like the pace. Otherwise, nowadays these attributes are common requirements for a centre-back. Just think to Raphael Varane, who recently proved at the World Cup that now he is the best defender in the World.

Varane is great at tackling, acceleration and a good friend with the ball, and these also true for Declan Rice. He likes to tackle, especially slide tackle. He is good at sliding tackle and often using that tool, the stats are average tough. Tackling 1,4 per match, intercepting 1 in 90 minutes and clearances is around 2,7 per match.

Declan showed some of his sliding tackle skills agains Manchester City. 

However, as I said he got pretty good technical abilities, which contains the ball controlling and passing skills, and has potential in through balls. He also likes to progress up the field, so he capable of playing in the midfield in a defensive role. Already have some experiences in defensive midfield position due to the fact that he played in Ireland National team as a defensive midfielder and also played few times at West Ham.