{"id":1049809,"date":"2026-09-07T23:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T23:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1049809\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T23:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T23:59:13","slug":"arsenal-souness-brands-gunners-hero-a-cheat-playing-old-man-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1049809\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal: Souness brands Gunners hero a ‘cheat’ playing ‘old man football’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Graeme Souness has accused Declan Rice of \u201ccheating\u201d as a supposed midfielder and claims the Arsenal<\/a> star wouldn\u2019t get into the best teams in world football.<\/p>\n

Rice<\/a><\/strong> has been widely lauded for his impact at Arsenal since his \u00a3100m move from West Ham in the summer of 2023 and played a key role in helping the Gunners to their first Premier League title in 22 years and the Champions League final last term.<\/p>\n

But Liverpool legend Souness \u2013 one of the great midfielders of his generation \u2013 isn\u2019t having him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many times do you see him as the last man with the ball,\u201d Souness told Piers Morgan on Football Uncensored<\/a>. \u201cIn the build-up, he\u2019s last man. He\u2019s sitting between two centre-halves or between the centre-half and the full-back. He\u2019s last man. A lot of the time, he doesn\u2019t play in midfield.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my second or third home game (of my career), I went into the back four like all midfield players do today. It\u2019s old man\u2019s football. It\u2019s cheating. An old man\u2019s way of playing midfield. You get the ball under no pressure and you play it out to the full-back.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe (Rice) plays too deep to affect the game. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s got enough football. Let me tell you what he can do. He\u2019s the best defensive midfielder in the country right now, he smells danger. But then again, he\u2019s back there all the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not a midfield player then is he? I think he may be a centre-half. The ball travels faster than you do. I see him run with the ball 30 yards and pass it square. He\u2019s a lovely kicker of the ball and opens his body up well, there\u2019s nothing to dislike about him. But modern players are a bit precious. Criticism doesn\u2019t fall easily on these (players\u2019) shoulders. He isn\u2019t the complete midfield player.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to Morgan\u2019s claim that Rice is a world class midfielder, Souness added: \u201cI\u2019m not sure if he gets in Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Man City. If you want the best in that position, City had two of them \u2013 Fernandinho and Rodri. They played in midfield. Next time, please watch him. He goes in and gets it cheap under no pressure, a 10-yard pass off Gabriel, and passes it sideways.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ: Premier League winners and losers: Arsenal, Arbeloa, Araujo, Ipswich, Vuskovic, De Zerbi<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rice to blame for World Cup exit<\/p>\n

Souness also blamed Rice for his role in England\u2019s World Cup semi-final defeat to Argentina in July<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen England went one-nil up against Argentina, they s*** themselves. \u2018Oh, what do we do now?\u2019 And I put that down to Declan Rice and (Elliot) Anderson as the central midfield players in the engine room,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t get them playing. They went back in held hands with the back four.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Graeme Souness has accused Declan Rice of \u201ccheating\u201d as a supposed midfielder and claims the Arsenal star wouldn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1049810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[45],"tags":[5407,28218,204,420373,50,221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1049809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-arsenal","tag-declan-rice","tag-front-page","tag-graeme-souness","tag-news","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117232478802458396","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1049809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1049810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1049809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1049809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1049809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}