With a commanding display at Liverpool, Declan Rice shows he is Arsenal’s man for all seasons, and reasons

Did you see Declan Rice? Or rather how did you not see Declan Rice? At Anfield, the loudest and meanest arena in Europe, against a rageful Liverpool, there were large swathes of the game when it seemed that there was more than one Declan Rice on the pitch.

He was there disrupting a pass; he was here bursting forth to create some space in the midfield; he was there mopping up for the faltering centre-back, heading a ball away to safety; he was there too, in the final third slipping in a pass into the box. Was it visual trickery of the retina-dazing fluorescence of Arsenal’s away shirt, or was it for real? For, how can a footballer perform so many roles! Were you sure he was not an AI-spawned robot footballer?

But that’s how Rice has been for Arsenal this season, immense and impactful. A match away from the halfway point, the 105 million pounds invested on him last summer already seems like money well spent, at a time when a ridiculous amount of money is spent on ridiculously inferior footballers. He did not score or make an assist, but made five vital clearances, two decisive tackles and as many interceptions, ran more miles than any midfielder on the pitch, and made 73 passes with a completion rate of 87.3 percent.

But none of the numbers embody the personality he wielded on the field. It’s hard to think of such a powerful footballer at the heart of Arsenal’s midfield since the days of Patrick Vieira. Better still, he is a Vieira wrapped in velvet, his combativeness hidden in plain sight. At his sight, Liverpool’s attackers would suddenly lose their composure, their minds frazzle, they lost the ball, they lost belief. They would slither and slide away from him, like when maneuvering a cursed bend on the highway. It’s