Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice has publicly defended his new teammate Noni Madueke following a wave of criticism from the club’s social media supporters. Madueke’s transfer from Chelsea, costing over \u00a350 million, has sparked debate among fans, many questioning the risk of investing heavily in a player not guaranteed a starting spot, as well as expressing broader fatigue with Chelsea signings.<\/p>\n
Rice expressed his dissatisfaction with the negative reaction. “I didn\u2019t like it, if I\u2019m speaking honestly,” he told reporters during Arsenal’s pre-season tour of Asia. He highlighted Madueke\u2019s determination and readiness to prove himself in the upcoming season. “I know how driven he is. I\u2019ve spoken to him and you\u2019re going to see what he’s about this season.”<\/p>\n
He emphasized the winger’s hunger and excitement about joining Arsenal, noting the sizeable entourage Madueke brought to his unveiling as a sign of his motivation and commitment. “I think he\u2019s going to shock a lot of people and I can\u2019t wait for him to come.”<\/p>\n
Madueke’s on-field credentials support Rice’s confidence. Last season, the two-footed forward led Premier League wingers in shots taken and was the most effective wide attacker in converting dribbles into goal attempts. Rice praised these qualities, saying, “When you\u2019re an attacking player and in your mind the first thought you have is to go past your defender, that\u2019s an unbelievable trait to have. He\u2019s going to bring that to the squad along with the other wingers we have.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Declan Rice addresses Arsenal fans’ criticism of Noni Madueke, praising his drive and potential impact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":586,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[253,59,254,180],"class_list":["post-587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-declan-rice","tag-featured","tag-noni-madueke","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","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=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":588,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions\/588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}