Micah Richards shares where he believes Arsenal’s Declan Rice ranks amongst the best midfielders

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Micah Richards has heaped praise on Arsenal’s Declan Rice and shared where he believes the player stands in comparison to other midfielders in world football.

Rice produced an excellent performance against Burnley at the weekend, scoring a powerful header as the Gunners strolled to a 2-0 win.

After a difficult opening few weeks of the new campaign, the 26-year-old has rediscovered his form from last season in the last month or so.

Mikel Arteta has slightly altered Rice’s role, allowing him to drop deeper next to Martin Zubimendi, and this tactical change is paying dividends.

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Micah Richards says Declan Rice is ‘one of the best in world football’

Rice’s recent form has sparked discourse around where he ranks amongst the world’s best midfielders.

Arsenal and Chelsea fans have engaged in a heated debate online around the England international and Moises Caicedo, while the likes of Rodri and Ryan Gravenberch have also been brought up in these conversations.

On the continent, the likes of Vitinha, Pedri and Joshua Kimmich are arguably the standout midfielders, although it would be hard to argue that any of them are as complete as Rice.

After Arsenal’s talismanic midfielder delivered a superb display at Turf Moor over the weekend, pundit Richards was full of praise for the player, while stating that he’s now one of the best midfielders in the world.

“I have to identify Declan Rice,” Richards said.

“Declan Rice, he took his game to a next level now, where you’re talking about him as possibly being one of the best in world football.

“And we saw him at West Ham, a very good player. I remember some pundits were criticising him in terms of they didn’t know what he was going to be. Is he a defensive midfielder? Is he an attacking midfielder?”

“He’s everything,” Lineker chimed in.

“Exactly that. Everything. He’s a box-to-box midfielder,” Richards replied.

“He can do everything, but he’s consistently putting in these performances where we have to start talking about him as one of the best in world football now.”

What more can Declan Rice still add to his game?

As Lineker and Richards stated, Rice has almost everything in his game.

An outstanding passer and ball carrier, who is physically impressive, defensively astute, exceptional at set-pieces and capable of chipping in with goals, the former West Ham man has almost every string to his bow.

However, to nit-pick, there are still a couple of aspects of his game he could improve upon. Aside from his set-piece threat, Rice isn’t the most creative player from open play.

He’s rarely seen threading an eye-of-the-needle pass through to a forward, with this type of creative passing simply not part of his repertoire at the moment.

The only other facet of his game that could improve is the way in which he receives the ball to progress it. He doesn’t quite possess the ability to evade pressure deep on the pitch through a slight body feint or shimmy, relying on taking several touches to drive past a player instead.