Declan Rice has been one of our standout players this season, helping us to the top of the Premier League and Champions League tables, as well as the Carabao Cup semi-finals.
His two goals in our 3-2 win over Bournemouth at the weekend emphasised his importance in Mikel Arteta’s squad, and our England midfielder has been talking to Sky Sports about how much he’s enjoying his football at the moment.
“I’m loving it,” Declan said, “I can only take every game as it comes but when I’m going on the pitch, I’m full of confidence at the moment, full of energy.
“At the start of the season, I realised myself that I probably wasn’t at my best, but this was two or three games in and obviously you’ve got a full season to go, so I wasn’t too worried, I knew I’d pick it back up.”
Despite a slow start to the season, Declan was quickly back to his best after a push in the right direction from Mikel Arteta.
“The good thing is with the manager, he knows when to put the knife in me, just to give me a nudge, he knows how to get the best out of me.
“I love to listen, I love to take it all in; since then, I’ve just gone on and the games are coming so thick and fast so I’m just trying to play consistently well. Every season, I think to myself, ‘how can you level up again, how can you go again and show why Arsenal brought you in’?
“This is a club where there’s fierce competition and nothing’s ever guaranteed, so you need to be able to be on it every single day and every single week just to keep your place.”
While our no.41 has had a fantastic individual season so far, his focus remains firmly on competing for major trophies with his teammates.
Declan feels confident that we can continue to deliver quality performances as we look to capture major titles this season.
“We’re in the position we’re in because we have amazing players, we have an incredible manager, we have a team that are fully buying into what the manager wants and we’re going out on the pitch at the minute and things are falling into place.
“There’s no better feeling than winning football matches; it can either make your weekend or break it. You go home and you’re deflated or you go home and you’re buzzing, and that’s what the training ground has been since the start of the season, there’s been a real good vibe and a real good energy around the place.”
Read more
Watch: Rice’s midfield masterclass at Bournemouth
To keep our winning momentum going, we’ll have to beat the Premier League champions Liverpool at Emirates Stadium on Thursday, January 8.
Declan has called on our supporters to create a special atmosphere for our first home game of 2026, before we start a run of four away matches in four different competitions.
“It’s a massive game. We need the Emirates to be on it again. We’re unbeaten at home, we need to go out there and give it everything we’ve got.
“The energy needs to be right, we need to transmit that energy on the pitch, give them the right reason to cheer and to push us on. It’s one at a time, it’s just another one down off the Christmas schedule and hopefully we can get another win and keep pushing on.”
Read more
Arteta: Our supporters make us a different team
Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
