Declan Rice travelled with the Arsenal squad for Saturday\u2019s trip to Bournemouth as the club prepared for their Premier League fixture at the Vitality Stadium. Manager Mikel Arteta made clear the final call on Rice\u2019s availability would wait until after Friday\u2019s training session, leaving the midfielder\u2019s immediate status undecided.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old joined the rest of the squad on the pre-match walk on Saturday morning, a development that suggested a return might be possible. The manager, however, left room for uncertainty, and whether Rice will feature will likely only be confirmed closer to kickoff.<\/p>\n
Arsenal go into the match top of the Premier League table, their advantage extended to four points following Manchester City\u2019s surprise draw with Sunderland in midweek. The position at the summit brings familiar pressure: on each of the five previous occasions in which Arsenal have started the new year as league leaders \u2014 2008, 2014, 2016, 2022 and 2023 \u2014 they did not go on to win the title, surrendering their starting spot as favourites.<\/p>\n
That history is something Arteta and his squad are conscious of, but the manager insisted the group are determined to alter the pattern. \u201cLet\u2019s break it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added pointedly on the state of the squad and the approach required to change the narrative. \u201cThat\u2019s what the players transmit every single day when they\u2019re with us, training, and in every match. You can see their desire. You can see the energy that they put in, and how much they want it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are still five months to go. Let\u2019s take it day-by-day, enjoy that process of being where we are, and go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rice\u2019s inclusion in the traveling party offers hope of involvement, but Arteta\u2019s measured approach underlined that a final decision would follow the team\u2019s final preparations on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Declan Rice travelled with Arsenal to Bournemouth; Arteta left a final call on fitness until Friday..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1303,969],"tags":[1305,1304,1307],"class_list":["post-5685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-arsenal-news","category-premier-league","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching","tag-collapse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685","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=5685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}