Foot & Soccer Soccer Match Reports, Football News
Morning, it’s quite a busy one despite the Interlull, so let’s start with the fact that Declan Rice will captain England tonight as they face Belgium in a friendly.
It’s obviously a bit annoying for Arsenal fans that he’s going to be involved in a meaningless game, and will probably play the full 90 minutes, but it’s something he clearly relishes, and all we can do is congratulate England for giving the armband to a man who has three full caps for Ireland.
In seriousness though, Rice was then asked about Ben White, and spoke about his Gunners teammate, saying:
Ben is such a good guy and he is an unbelievable footballer. It is hard to know really what is going on but he has made his decision and he doesn’t want to play for England at this moment in time.
Of course he knows, and everybody close to the England set-up knows, even if some senior reporters have churned out some pretty disingenuous stuff over the last ten days or so. It’s obvious that Ben White’s issue isn’t with England per se, it’s Gareth Southgate’s England or, more specifically, one member of Gareth Southgate’s staff. That it’s been framed as him turning his back on his nation is sadly typical of the way the press and social media operates these days, but it’s not remotely the full picture. But at least it gives people an excuse to get outraged about something as they ignore stuff they should be really angry about.
Where Rice is spot on though is the fact England are without a player who is both high quality and versatile. He continued:
He’s a really unique player because he can play three positions. In tournaments that’s so key. He can play centre-back, he can play right-back, he can play inverted full-back.
There’s a lot of chat about how the competition at right-back means Ben White wouldn’t play, which ignores the fact he’s also an accomplished centre-half, and when it comes right down to it, he’s a better player than someone like Harry Maguire who gets…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/03/rice-to-captain-england-talks-about-ben-white-saliba-deschamps/
Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2024-03-26 07:21:31
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
