Steven Gerrard has voiced genuine regret over Declan Rice\u2019s move to Arsenal in 2023, questioning how different Merseyside might look if the midfielder had arrived at Anfield. Gerrard\u2019s comments came during an appearance on The Smith Brothers podcast as he assessed Rice\u2019s rapid rise.<\/p>\n
Manchester City were thought to be front-runners that summer but withdrew when West Ham demanded in excess of \u00a390 million. That valuation also proved beyond Liverpool\u2019s plans as the club embarked on a midfield rebuild after the departures of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson. Arsenal eventually met the fee, paying \u00a3105 million for Rice, while Liverpool opted to allocate around \u00a3155 million across Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch.<\/p>\n
That trio provided the platform for Liverpool\u2019s Premier League title charge last season. Rice finished as runner-up with Arsenal for the second successive season, yet Gerrard still finds himself imagining an alternative scenario at Anfield.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s really getting into that class where he\u2019s becoming a world-class midfielder,\u201d the iconic Merseyside icon gushed during a recent appearance on The Smith Brothers podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s maybe one we should\u2019ve tried to grab from West Ham, I don\u2019t know whether we did but imagine him in this midfield now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gerrard\u2019s regard for Rice is not new to the player. Following Rice\u2019s high-profile free-kick against Real Madrid in the Champions League quarterfinals, the midfielder noted the attention from former England players: \u201cI think [David] Beckham messaged me, but I had that many messages,\u201d Rice told TNT Sports in September, specifically referencing his free-kick heroics against Real Madrid in the Champions League quarterfinals. \u201cOld England legends, all of them, like Frank Lampard, Gerrard, so many people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gerrard expanded on what he admires in Rice\u2019s game and presence. \u201cI love Declan Rice,\u201d he raved, \u201cI\u2019ve been singing his praises for a long time. I coached [Aston] Villa against West Ham before he went to Arsenal, I didn\u2019t realise how big he was because hadn\u2019t met him in person.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get in the tunnel and think, \u2018Oh my god, that\u2019s some profile for a midfielder.\u2019 If you\u2019re building a midfielder, he\u2019s got a body to die for, if you\u2019re 6’1″, 6’2″, and have the legs, the power, that\u2019s the midfielder you want to be. He was calm in possession, an animal out of it, up and down, I really like him as a person as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gerrard reflects on Declan Rice joining Arsenal in 2023 and what Liverpool missed midfield rebuild. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,175],"tags":[1047],"class_list":["post-5474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-liverpool","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}