Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has expressed his hope that midfielder Declan Rice can one day compete for football\u2019s most prestigious individual honour, the Ballon d\u2019Or. Speaking after Arsenal\u2019s recent fixture, Arteta praised Rice\u2019s consistency, leadership, and influence since the start of the season, highlighting how his performances have elevated the team\u2019s overall level.<\/p>\n
In comments shared by journalist Fabrizio Romano, Arteta said that a Ballon d\u2019Or triumph for Rice would reflect Arsenal\u2019s collective success. \u201cI hope so! That would mean that we have won a lot, normally it is related to that,\u201d the manager noted. His words underline a belief long associated with the award: individual recognition often follows team achievements at the highest level, including league titles and deep European runs.<\/p>\n
Arteta continued by singling out Rice\u2019s recent displays, emphasising the midfielder\u2019s importance within the squad structure. \u201cHe was immense the other day. I think he\u2019s been immense since the start of the season, and he\u2019s an incredible and crucial player for us,\u201d he added. Such high praise highlights the crucial role Rice has taken on since joining the club, becoming a dominant presence in midfield through his defensive intelligence, ball-carrying ability, and leadership qualities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has expressed his hope that midfielder Declan Rice can one day compete for football\u2019s most prestigious\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":37361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[270,1738,398,3918,3796,702,4034],"class_list":["post-16501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-arsenal","tag-arteta","tag-declan-rice","tag-english-premier-league","tag-football","tag-mikel-arteta","tag-premier-league-2025-26"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}