OPINION
Roy Keane offered a rather measured verdict on Declan Rice’s latest display for England on Saturday after the West Ham midfielder featured in the 4-0 win against Bulgaria at Wembley.
Rice, 20, completed the entire 90 minutes in his first full appearance as an England player at the home of football since switching international allegiance from the Republic of Ireland earlier this year.
He had a decent game for the Three Lions as he broke up opposition attacks, looked comfortable on the ball and even pressed forward at times to help out his team-mates when they had possession in an advanced area.
Manchester United legend Keane saw those positives from Rice but he did not seem too impressed with Rice’s quality when he did have the ball at his feet.
“His strength at the moment is breaking things up where today he got quite a lot of possession and that’s probably not one of his strengths,” Keane said, speaking on ITV after the Euro 2020 qualifier on Saturday [7:06pm]
“But he is still learning, he’s 20 years of age. We’ve got to go easy on him and give him a chance to mature and learn the role.”
It is a fair verdict by Keane.
Rice started off his career as a centre-back and now he is playing in a defensive midfield role, so his strengths are always going to be his ability to win back the ball and offer cover for the defenders behind him.
Against Bulgaria, Rice made three tackles, which was more than any other player for England, and three interceptions, which was more than what any player on the pitch managed [WhoScored].
Bulgaria only really had a couple of clear cut chances when they got the ball past the England defence but those chances were restricted thanks to how well Rice played when the Three Lions were out of possession.
However in possession, that appears to be where Rice attracted criticism.
According to stats by WhoScored, the West Ham midfielder completed 97 per cent of his passes on Saturday, made one key pass and completed three dribbles.
Only Raheem Sterling and Ross Barkley dribbled the ball more successfully than Rice, but stats about this don’t always tell the whole story.
While Rice completed 95 passes on the Wembley pitch, they were passes that most would consider safe ones.
He spent a lot of his time in a much more advanced role than he is used to playing for West Ham.
For example, WhoScored’s heatmap shows Rice spending a lot of his time on the ball in the Bulgaria half.
Whereas in West Ham’s last Premier League match against Norwich, when Manuel Pellegrini’s side impressed in a 2-0 win, Rice saw a lot less of the ball and most of his touches came in his own half.
Keane makes another very good point about Rice – he is still only young.
Because the midfielder is such a regular fixture in the West Ham starting line-up and has been for a while now, it is easy to forget that he is only 20-years-old.
Maybe after some time he will develop into a more complete midfielder than can boss possession as well as he can operate when trying to win the ball back.
One thing is for sure and that is that West Ham fans surely cannot wait for that to happen.