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Oh and ripe time to bring out my Rice at 6 >> Rice at 8 agenda
There was discourse about this at the beginning of the season, but at this point, it’s not an agenda, it’s an objective fact.
I think he can get there, but he has some growing to do in the final 3rd as an 8 to be as effective as we need to knock City off
I mean, we’ve literally knocked off City twice now with Rice playing as an 8.
Don’t want to make it sound like I’m criticizing rice because I’m not. Defensively he’s amazing, but the disguised passes, quick turns out the press to start the attack and spring saka/martinelli, he just does not have that in his locker yet consistently. Yesterday he had a golden chance to immediately play Jesus first time or cut back to ode free in the box and he instead went with an outside the boot shot.
He’s a big part of why we’re not creating anywhere NEAR the amount of chances we were last year, ton of possession in the final third but doing way less substantial things with it.
And it’s more on arteta for trying to shoehorn him there (and buying Havertz who’s also been useless at LCM so far) than Rice’s fault because he obviously didn’t consistently play this far advanced at West ham
depends on the game.
VS Burnley ball (80% of our games it appears)… pointless playing him as an 8 because we need two attacking mids otherwise MØ just gets marked out the game.
VS everyone else… rice as a box to box 8 is great.