It is time to stop hedging: Declan Rice is the best central midfielder in the Premier League, and Anfield was the latest proof.
Rice collected the player of the match award after Arsenal won 1-0 at Liverpool on Sunday, and it was his overlap and low cross that set up Kai Havertz for the winner. Jamie Carragher went even further on Sky Sports, saying: “He’s the best midfield player in the Premier League by a long way. It’s not even a debate.”
We agree with every word. And the strange thing is how long it has taken for the rest of the country to say it out loud.
Is Declan Rice the best midfielder in the Premier League?
Yes, and it isn’t close. Plenty of midfielders in this league have cost around £100m, and some of them are very good players. But how many of them look like a bargain? Rice cost £105m when he arrived from West Ham in 2023, and three years on nobody even mentions the fee. That tells you everything.
The numbers back up the eye test. Before Anfield he had 22 goals and 35 assists in 170 Arsenal appearances, and four assists in eight Premier League matches this season. He has been Arsenal’s Player of the Season in each of the last two campaigns, and at 27 he is only now reaching his prime years.
Is there anything he can’t do?
Not much. He has played as a number six, as a number eight and at right-back for Mikel Arteta. He wins the ball back, reads the game, blocks shots, covers for his own mistakes and for his teammates’ too. Then he takes the set pieces, arrives in the box and chips in with goals and assists.
He matters in every phase of play, which is rarer than it sounds. Most elite midfielders are brilliant at one or two things. Rice is very good at almost all of them, and he turns up in the big moments rather than hiding from them.
Can he pass the ball forward?
This is the old criticism, and it has aged badly. No, he isn’t a Spanish-style technician who lives on line-breaking passes. But anyone using their eyes rather than a preconceived narrative can see him trying to break lines, switch play and carry the ball through midfield. When Arsenal are flat, he is usually the one searching for the ball and dragging the side forward. He has got better every single year at N5.
A signing that changed what Arsenal believed
Some signings change more than a team sheet. Dennis Bergkamp changed the direction of the club. Mesut Ozil told everyone that the years of financial restraint were over. Rice belongs in that bracket, because his arrival turned winning the Premier League from a pipe dream into a target, and he has helped deliver it.
Availability is a huge part of that. He missed just two Premier League games in the title-winning 2025-26 season and has sat out only five matches for club and country through injury since 2023. You can count on one hand the games Arsenal can afford to play without him.
That is why the new contract matters so much. Arteta has called it a matter of time before Rice signs his new deal, which could make him the club’s highest earner. On what he gives this side, he would be worth it.
Where does he rank among Arsenal’s great midfielders?
This is where it gets fun. Pick your best Arsenal XI from the last 30 years and the midfield is crowded: Patrick Vieira, Cesc Fabregas and Gilberto Silva, who held the Invincibles together, all have strong cases.
Vieira at his peak is still the benchmark, and Rice would probably tell you that himself. But if we were naming a three, Rice would be in it next to Vieira. Just being part of that conversation, three years after joining, is remarkable. In a wider English sense, he belongs in the same discussion as Frank Lampard as one of the best central midfielders this country has produced. People don’t want to admit it, but it’s true.
What stands out most is the hunger. He has every reason to be comfortable by now, and yet he still plays like someone who has won nothing.
What Anfield showed about Rice and this Arsenal side
It wasn’t a pretty afternoon on the ball. Liverpool had 56% of possession and 17 shots, and Arteta admitted afterwards that his side “couldn’t break out”. We looked at that problem, and the case for Myles Lewis-Skelly starting next to Rice, in more detail.
But Arsenal were comfortable being uncomfortable. Liverpool failed to land a single shot on target in a home Premier League game for the first time in Opta’s records, and Rice got better as the game went on. Ezri Konsa, Jurrien Timber and Gabriel deserve their share of the praise too. It was a collective job, and nobody in red and white let the side down. The full story of how Arsenal ended 14 years of waiting at Anfield is worth a read if you missed it.
The result is what counts. Arsenal sit top with 24 points from nine games, and that came only four days after a Carabao Cup exit on penalties to Fleetwood Town. Being able to win ugly as well as pretty is what title teams do.
Verdict: Declan Rice is the Premier League’s best midfielder
There is no team in Europe he wouldn’t get into, and no midfielder in England we would swap him for. The Ballon d’Or voters may have put him 15th this year, but anyone who watches Arsenal every week knows better.
Slavia Prague away on Wednesday and Hull City at the Emirates follow, and Arteta needs two more wins from a demanding week. Whatever the line-up, we know who will be holding the middle together. It’s time to admit it: Rice is the best in the Prem.
