Speaking on the Joe Cole Podcast, Declan Rice has been discussing his style of play and the footballer he’d most like to emulate on the pitch.
Rice is a bit of an enigma of a player. He came through as a centre-back, before being shifted into something of an anchor role as he matured, but now, he’s very much a box-to-box midfielder.
It’s very tough to identify Rice’s best role for England or for West Ham, but the 23-year-old views himself as a bit more of a playmaker, stating that he’d like to play in a similar way to Toni Kroos, claiming that he’s constantly watching the German and trying to learn from his game.
Rice wants to be like Kroos
The West Ham ace says he’d like to be more like Kroos.
“To be fair the way I play is that I like to pull out. The best play I’d like to play is like Toni Kroos, the way he receives the ball on the back foot and he is always facing forwards and he can see the whole pitch. I watch him all the time and he’s so effortless. He doesn’t have the legs that he used to have, but when he has the ball he’s always facing forward. I love watching him play,” Rice said.
Typecast
Rice wants to be a Toni Kroos-esque midfielder, but sadly, that is probably never going to happen.
As a physically imposing, strong, energetic and English midfielder, Rice is probably always going to be typcast into that holding midfield role that prioritises off the ball actions and workrate rather than being a Kroos-esque playmaker who can pull all of the strings from a deep-lying position.
Kroos is very much a luxury player and a generational midfield talent, and Rice will probably never be that type of footballer.
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