{"id":509175,"date":"2026-05-29T19:01:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T19:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/509175\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T19:01:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T19:01:19","slug":"malachy-clerkin-the-five-most-annoying-things-about-declan-rice-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/509175\/","title":{"rendered":"Malachy Clerkin: The five most annoying things about Declan Rice \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most annoying thing about Declan Rice <\/a>is that he turned out to be this good. It would be so much easier if he were only middling, if he were dutifully toiling away at one of the smartly run data-mining clubs that everyone admires for getting the most out of limited resources. Or better again, obviously, if he was a bust altogether. <\/p>\n

But no. Rice <\/a>became the sort of midfielder every team wishes they had. A Premier League winner. A stone-cold certainty for the PFA Team of the Year, every year. Champions League final this weekend. World Cup in a fortnight. Just turned 27 and every bit of the jigsaw falling into place.<\/p>\n

The second most annoying thing about Rice is that he doesn\u2019t seem to be a bad lad<\/a>. Now, it\u2019s clearly possible that this is a pose. He was pictured hanging out with Piers Morgan during the week, after all. Then again, that seemed to be the lot of every Arsenal player in the wake of lifting the Premier League trophy. So, who knows?<\/p>\n

Christian Norgaard left Brentford in order to start precisely one game in Arsenal\u2019s entire league campaign. He went from being club captain of a Premier League club to the equivalent of one of the people who get into the Oscars so they can fill a seat when Ryan Reynolds wants to go for a wazz. Yet even he had Morgan mugging for the camera beside him last Sunday. So maybe we shouldn\u2019t make too much of Rice sharing his moment of glory with the hanger-ons\u2019 hanger-on. <\/p>\n

It would be a lot easier, though, wouldn\u2019t it? If Rice had turned out to be just another Premier League dose, or a central casting yobbo, or a closed-off millionaire with a rolling troupe of interchangeable pneumatic women on his arm. That would be the ideal, really. You could say what you wanted about him then.<\/p>\n

But actually, insofar as anyone can judge these things from a distance, Rice appears to be a reasonably decent sort. A couple of weeks back, Stevenage went out of the League One play-offs in the semi-final, prompting their midfielder Dan Kemp to post one of those \u201cGutted-we-didn\u2019t-get-it-done\u201d messages on his Instagram. Rice was straight into the comments, geeing him up \u2013 they\u2019ve been best friends since coming through the Chelsea academy together. <\/p>\n

\"DeclanDeclan Rice was let go from Chelsea at the age of 14. Photograph: Getty Images <\/p>\n

Famously, Rice was let go from Chelsea <\/a>at the age of 14. Kemp was with him there and later at West Ham. Their paths diverged, Rice to the very elite tier of the game and Kemp to a noble but workaday existence in the lower leagues. They\u2019re still friends for life. So annoying. <\/p>\n

The third most annoying thing about Rice is watching Ireland without him. It\u2019s being convinced Ireland would part of the World Cup when it starts in 12 days. It\u2019s applauding the genuine efforts of Josh Cullen, Jason Knight and Jayson Molumby, but knowing all we know about their limits. It\u2019s hoping that Bosun Lawal or Conor Coventry or Joe Hodge can make the leap. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s cocking an ear to the rave notices Manchester United youngster Jacob Devaney got during his loan spell with St Mirren and wondering, does it mean he\u2019s going to be good enough to do a job for Ireland in a few years? Or worse, fearing it might mean he\u2019s going to be so good that England will soon come calling, carrying a cardboard cut-out of Rice as a visual aid, convincing him it\u2019s a no-brainer to come home to the Three Lions.<\/p>\n

\"InternationalInternational Friendly, Stade de France, Paris, 2018: Ireland\u2019s Declan Rice with Nabil Fekir of France. Photograph: Inpho<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been eight years since Rice <\/a>played his last game in an Ireland jersey. On Thursday night, Ireland lined up against Qatar with a starting 11 that didn\u2019t contain a single Granny Rule player. Three Dubs, two from Cork, one each from Kildare, Meath, Wicklow, Waterford and Meath, plus Chiedozie Ogbene, born in Lagos, reared in Douglas. All four subs were home-grown, too. Finding our own Declan Rices is no bad thing.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the fourth most annoying thing \u2013 the fact that turning his back on Ireland has turned out to be 100 per cent the correct move. Whatever about for us, it\u2019s definitely been right for him. Maybe Rice, jobbing midfielder with Ireland and West Ham, gets a move to one of the big clubs eventually. But Rice, first-choice England midfielder in every game of the 2021 Euros and the 2022 World Cup? Record transfer fee.<\/p>\n

\"'Arsenal‘Arsenal bought the English game\u2019s one ready-made, all-purpose, plug-in-and-play midfielder and built their title-winning team out from there.’ Photograph: Getty Images <\/p>\n

And the fifth most annoying thing? He\u2019s been worth every penny of it. Arsenal jumped in with the loot in the same summer Man United were scratching around buying the likes of Mason Mount and Rasmus H\u00f8jlund and Andr\u00e9 Onana for the guts of \u20ac200 million. Finally, on the last day of the transfer window, they took Moroccan midfielder Sofyan Amrabat in on loan, getting a defensive midfielder in much the same way you throw a Crunchie on to the till counter when you\u2019re paying for petrol.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Arsenal bought the English game\u2019s one ready-made, all-purpose, plug-in-and-play midfielder and built their title-winning team out from there. It took them three seasons but they\u2019re at the top of the mountain now and they have the Champions League final to come. <\/p>\n

As an Irish Man United fan, you best believe that\u2019s deeply, deeply annoying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The most annoying thing about Declan Rice is that he turned out to be this good. It would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[2725,53365,18,19,17,795,132],"class_list":["post-509175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-arsenal","tag-declan-rice","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-premier-league","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116659413999091205","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}