More

Rice believes Arsenal deserved draw after 'dominating' Manchester City

Arsenal's Declan Rice (R)
Arsenal's Declan Rice (R)John Walton, PA Images / Alamy / Profimedia

Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice felt they deserved more after Sunday's 1-1 draw with Manchester City.

Gabriel Martinelli jumped from the bench to earn Arsenal the point after his goal cancelled out an early opener from Erling Haaland.

“When you come off the bench, at that point of the game, 60, 70, 80 minutes, the game's a completely different game to the start of the game,” Rice said afterwards.

“The game's opened up, it's more stretched, and for players like Gabi, they're unbelievable when they do start. But when they come on, their strength, which is their pace, their dribbling, helps them massively because there’s so much space, and in the end, that run and finish, was unbelievable. We fully deserved it.”

The midfielder added: “I think the feeling of me being on the pitch, knowing my players, my team, the manager's thoughts, the players' thoughts, and speaking to them is that, with the ball, it was probably the first time since I've been here, that we've dominated Man City like that, in terms of passing the ball. 

“The way we pegged them back, the way we made them play a completely different way to how they've ever played before, I think that shows a big respect to us on what we're doing. Obviously, the first goal was a bit disappointing because it started on the edge of their box and ended up in the back of our net.

"Usually, we were on that type of counter-attack, but to come back, to keep pushing, to not let our heads drop, it would have been easy, but we kept fighting and showing the mentality that we needed. In the end, I think we got a great goal from Gabi, so we definitely deserved something from the game.”

Keep track of Declan Rice by following him in the Flashscore app - find out how to do that here