Speaking on the No Tippy Tappy Football Podcast, Sam Allardyce has been discussing Declan Rice’s career path so far.
The England international is now widely recognised as one of the best players in the Premier League as a central midfielder, but let’s not forget he came through as a centre-half.
Indeed, during David Moyes’ first reign in charge, Rice would be used as a centre-back more often than not, but he has since moved to be a defensive midfielder and eventually a box-to-box number eight.
Allardyce has been a bit taken aback by this shift, stating that players usually start as attackers and move backwards, but Rice has done things differently.
Rice’s rare move
Allardyce discussed Rice’s career progression.
“Look at Declan Rice. This doesn’t happen normally, normally you start up front and you go backwards, but Rice started as a centre-half all of his life and now he’s become a great central midfield player. He’s been moved out of his natural position. Now if you say to him go and play centre-half, he’d say ‘What I don’t want to play centre-half.’ He’s taken to it brilliantly,” Allardyce said.
Unusual
As Allardyce says, this is quite an unusual career path.
Every now and then you’ll get a midfielder who drops into the defence or a striker moving into the midfield, but it’s rare to see a centre-back moving forwards – especially in this day and age.
In an era where centre-backs need to be amongst the best ball-players in any given team, players like Rice are often kept in the backline to be used as ball-playing defenders.
However, Manuel Pellegrini saw something in Rice that made him think he’d be best utilised in the midfield, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Rice is now one of the Premier League’s top midfielders and he’ll probably never been seen as a starting centre-back again.
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