Arteta Defends Rice Amid Workload Concerns
Mikel Arteta brushed off the criticism with a smile, but the message underneath was anything but light.
The Arsenal manager is under scrutiny over Declan Rice’s workload, yet he insists the club-record signing is being handled with more care than anyone else in his squad. Tired legs or not, Rice keeps playing — and Arteta clearly has no intention of wrapping his midfield general in cotton wool.
Arteta bites back over Rice workload fears
Rice has barely stopped since August. After a 69-game slog for club and country last season, he has once again become the ever-present heartbeat of Arsenal’s midfield.
He has started all nine of Arsenal’s Premier League fixtures. He has completed 90 minutes in four of the last five. He started again in midweek against Slavia Prague while senior figures such as Martin Odegaard and Riccardo Calafiori were rotated out of the XI.
By the end of that European tie, Rice looked heavy-legged, straining through the final stages. Now he heads off to join England, having missed the previous international camp because of load management.
The narrative writes itself: too much football, too soon, for a player who barely pauses for breath. Arteta, though, was having none of it.
“Concerns?” he snapped when asked if Rice was being overused. “The only player, the only player in this squad that for two games in the Carabao Cup has been left out of the squad. At home with two days off. That’s my concern.
“It’s not true. We are really looking after him more than any other season. The way he’s training and all the load. That’s it.”
Arteta leaned hard on the demands of life at Arsenal. For him, this is what elite looks like.
“Here are the demands of this football club and you have a player like him,” he said. “Not only him because there are many others that have even less time. That’s it.
“That has to be the mindset. If you start to put other things in your brain, damage. Erase them, get them in the bin and just focus on what you have to do.”
No hint of compromise. No suggestion Rice might be eased off. In Arteta’s world, the standard is set and his £100million midfielder is expected to live at that level.
No excuses after gruelling run on the road
Arteta’s defiance extended beyond one player. Arsenal’s schedule has been awkward, their travel miles piling up early in the season, but he refuses to let that become a crutch.
Of the 15 matches Arsenal have played so far, only five have come at the Emirates. Over the past week alone, they have gone from Fleetwood to Liverpool to Prague, a relentless loop of airports, hotels and away dressing rooms.
Now comes a return to north London, with Hull visiting on Saturday. Many managers would lean into the narrative of fatigue and disruption. Arteta went the other way.
“No challenge,” he said, dismissing the notion that the calendar had treated Arsenal harshly.
“It’s all a pleasure. I heard them tell me: ‘you guys fly with private jets and good buses and good food’. It’s beautiful. We have done it. It was what we had ahead of us, it was another challenge.
“Because normally you don’t play four away games in a row or three away games in a row. And you don’t play Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday – very strange.
“We have done it a few times and we have to do it tomorrow again. We are buzzing.”
There was a hint of mischief in that last line, but the underlying point was clear: Arsenal will not be allowed to hide behind circumstance. Not the travel. Not the fixture list. Not the strain on Rice’s legs.
Arteta has nailed his colours to the mast. His team, and his midfield talisman, are expected to embrace the grind. The question now is whether that relentless drive carries them through the season — or pushes them right to the edge.
