12 January 2024 , 07:14
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Arsenal forked out a club record £105m to bring Declan Rice to the Emirates Stadium over the summer, but the midfielder caught their eye long before then in a game which laid bare the issues of the Unai Emery era.
Rice's first game against the Gunners didn't go to plan. The then-teenage star, filling in at centre-back, gifted Arsene Wenger's side a goal in a 4-1 victory against Wesr Ham just days after the legendary manager's long goodbye began.
Both managers had changed by the time Arsenal and West Ham next met. Rice was left on the bench when Manuel Pellegrini's Hammers lost to Unai Emery's Gunners in North London, but was firmly part of the furniture for the reverse fixture.
Rice came back into the starting line-up as Pellegrini looked for a turnaround after losing the first four games of the season. The tweak worked, with the youngster playing every single minute from mid-September until the end of April, scoring his first senior goal in a win against Arsenal just days before his 20th birthday.
At the time, Rice was in the midst of an international tug of war between Ireland and England. He had three senior caps for the former, but would begin exploring the possibility of representing the country of his birth, eventually making it official in February 2019.
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By that point, though, he had firmly established himself as a Premier League regular. And the goal against Arsenal, sweeping home a pass from former Gunners star Samir Nasri, was his just reward.
“The truth is, I was not 100 per cent sure [he would progress to this level],” Hammers boss Pellegrini admitted a few weeks later. “I saw him play well last year but I saw him make a lot of mistakes too, but that’s normal in the first season. But he kept proving himself and showing that he could be an important player.
“We had a very bad first game against Liverpool [on the opening day of the season] and he started that match but the first thing I made clear to him was that the defeat was not because of his individual performance, but that we were trying to find our feet as a team in that moment and that we soon would. And soon he became a big player for us and now he is vitally important and he has a future you wouldn’t have dreamed of.”
What have you made of Declan Rice's start at Arsenal? Have your say in the comments section
Declan Rice's first career goal came against Arsenal in 2019 (Getty Images)West Ham's win against Arsenal lifted them to ninth, firmly putting to bed the relegation worries which surfaced after those opening four games. Arsenal, meanwhile, dropped six points adrift of the Champions League spots after the defeat and would miss out on a top four spot under Emery.
Jack Wilshere found himself in the unusual position of celebrating an Arsenal defeat that day, having moved across London to West Ham over the summer. The England international missed the game through injury but was on hand to cast his eye over affairs for Sky Sports, and he recognised a growing worry which Emery couldn't find a solution for.
‘"When you go away from home you change your mentality," Wilshere said. ‘"The most important thing is be hard to beat.
"When you watch Arsenal at home they’re brilliant, it wasn’t that long ago they beat Tottenham. They were playing unbelievable football and everyone was saying they’ve changed.
"Away from home though you have to change and not be easy to play through, sometimes you can play through them too easily," he added. And it would prove to be Emery's undoing.
Jack Wilshere was worried by former club Arsenal in 2019 (Getty Images for Premier League)Arsenal picked up 45 points from a possible 57 at home in Emery's one full season, with only Manchester City and Crystal Palace coming away with victories. Away from the Emirates Stadium, though, they lost more than they won.
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It was more of the same the following season. Before losing his job at the end of November, Emery oversaw three wins and four draws across seven home league games but earned just five points from six matches on the road.
Arteta took a while to get the situation under control himself, albeit after walking into a team in need of a squad shake-up. Arsenal showed mixed form both at home and on the road in his first full season, while his second - despite a fifth-place finish - featured nine wins and nine defeat away from home.
Last season, though, something clicked. Not only did Arsenal win 12 of their 19 away league games, losing just four, but they conceded fewer away than at home. So much for being easy to play through.
Rice has impressed since joining Mikel Arteta at Arsenal (Getty Images)A lack of firepower this season has brought its own issues, but the defensive sturdiness has remained after Rice's arrival. Arteta's team have conceded 10 times in 10 away games, consistent with last season's 18 in 19, with clean sheets against Brentford, Bournemouth, Everton and Crystal Palace.
Recent results have been tougher to take, with West Ham contributing to three straight defeats in all competitions for Arteta's men. One of those saw old problems resurface as Fulham came from behind to win 2-1 on New Year's Eve, but Rice himself came forward after that reverse to demand better from himself and his team-mates.
"In the end, they won more duels, won more battles and sat in tight and in the end we weren’t good enough," Rice said. "When you’re not good enough in the Premier League you lose games and it’s a really tough one to take.
"You can see that we want to be competing for the Premier League, we want to be up there fighting and the last few results haven’t been up to the standards that we’ve set and the standards the manager has set. We’ve let ourselves down today and we’ve let the fans down.”
Next up for Arsenal is a home meeting with Crystal Palace, followed by a trip to Nottingham Forest. Last season's defeat at the City Ground was one of their rare limp away displays, and now would be as good a time as any for Arsenal to show their old woes are a thing of the past.