'He's been on us': Declan Rice shares what Mikel Arteta has constantly been telling him to improve recently

Yesterday at 05:49 PM

Mikel Arteta understandably chose to make a few changes to his Arsenal side for their relatively straight forward tie against Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League.

Arsenal ran out 3-0 winners and were never really tested by Dinamo, who were being managed by Italy legend Fabio Cannavaro for the first time at the Emirates Stadium.

Perhaps Arteta's most significant change was installing Kiwior into his defence alongside Gabriel Magalhaes.

Many Arsenal fans felt as if Arteta made a mistake by not trusting the Poland international against Aston Villa, in turn playing Thomas Partey out of position at right-back.

Kiwior fared well under very little pressure at the back.

But in terms of who won the game for Arsenal going forward, both Gabriel Martinelli and Declan Rice stole the show.

Declan Rice puts Mikel Arteta’s advice to go use against Dinamo Zagreb

Rice opened the scoring for Arsenal, finishing emphatically after a deft touch from Kai Havertz set up the ball quite perfectly.

After the game, Rice spoke to TNT Sports and shared some interesting words about Arteta asking his midfielders to arrive in more goalscoring positions, which he ultimately did.

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Asked about adding goals from midfield, Rice replied: "So important, I think the manager he's been on us really hard about midfielders arriving [in the box] because so many goals can come from there.

"It's down to us to make up that extra five, ten yards – Martin [Odegaard] obviously did there right at the end of the game, I did for the header.

"So we've got to keep arriving there, look it was an important win tonight, it's been a really positive Champions League campaign so we've got one more to go now, hopefully we can win that as well." 

Gabriel Martinelli continues to shine in the Champions League

As mentioned, Martinelli was also in superb form for the Gunners, even if he was facing less accomplished full-backs on the left in comparison to the Premier League.

Fans were delighted with Martinelli, who they'll be willing to carry on that kind of fearless form against Wolverhampton Wanders on the weekend.

Of course, it'll be interesting to see if Arteta opts for Ethan Nwaneri on the right against Wolves, who made his return against Dinamo.

Nwaneri floated a brilliant ball into the box late on for Rice to head home, only for the England international to fluff his lines – something he was annoyed about in the same interview.

A promising night for Arsenal, who still have much more work to do.