Declan Rice is Arsenal's heir to Patrick Vieira's throne - £105m midfielder has the quality, character & charisma needed to become an all-time legend for club and country

No one expected Rice to be this good. Not even close. When he first emerged at West Ham as a defensive midfielder who could slot in between the centre-backs, it was widely said his ceiling was as an Eric Dier-type player - a good-not-great starter for a team in the top six.

To his credit, Rice became more than simply a water carrier. It felt as if he was adding new parts to his game all the time, evolving from a destroyer to a tempo-setter to a box-to-box behemoth. It was no coincidence this aligned with West Ham's swift reversal from relegation candidates to European regulars considering they turned a youth academy graduate into a multi-million pound midfielder with remarkable consistency.

Going hand-in-hand with Rice's technical and physical qualities - he's known as 'The Horse' nowadays due to the latter - was a mental resilience, particularly when the Hammers were lingering at the wrong end of the Premier League table. "Probably my most challenging moment was in the 2018-19 season," Rice told HYPEBEAST in 2022. "We lost 4-0 to Liverpool and I was dragged off at half-time. For the next two games, I was left out of the squad, so then I asked to go out on loan and was told no. In those tough times, you think you're not cut out for it, because you had a bad 45 minutes. Then we went on to play Everton, I was named Man of the Match and I haven't really looked back. It was a test of mindset, of character, and just believing in my ability."

Rice, a self-aware footballer in keeping with the times, was very conscious of his development too. "I am not just a holding midfielder anymore," he said to Sky Sports in a piece which likened him to more advanced midfielders in Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard. "I was always labelled as one that just sits in front of the back four, I really now want to see myself as a box-to-box player where I can get up and down and create things as well as getting back and helping the team."

Even the most passionate West Ham fans would admit that Rice had outgrew them by the time they had reached the Europa League semi-finals in 2022. A month or so later, he was named club captain following Mark Noble's retirement, taking the armband at only 23 years of age.

That European excursion made the Hammers among the favourites to win the 2022-23 Conference League. They still had to actually go on a run in order to get to the final and beat Fiorentina in memorable fashion, and Rice became the first West Ham captain in 43 years to hoist a trophy that wasn't that of the Championship play-offs.

The seeds had been sewn for a bountiful career at the very top level, and West Ham's price tag in excess of £100m was totally justifiable. They wouldn't just be parting company with a legend of their own, but one of his next club as well. You had to pay a premium. The only conceivable obstacles in Rice's way were injury and fitness, yet even then he had an almost clean record.

Worth noting about Rice is he had already wracked up plenty of experience at international level with England, forming a core part of the Three Lions side who so nearly won Euro 2020. Midway through that run, he told West Ham's website of how he wanted to make an impression on a star-studded squad: "When I come into England, you've obviously got Harry Kane, Jordan Henderson, and the vocal side of the game is so important because when you’re on the pitch if you're not communicating with each other and helping each other out, if you're quiet out there an extra voice is going to help. So I think it’s important to impose your character and personality on the pitch and that's what I try to do."

His central midfield partner changed from that Euros to the 2022 World Cup, swapping out Kalvin Phillips for Jude Bellingham. "We're learning really well together," Rice told the Guardian of his relationship with the future Real Madrid star. "There's been a lot of goals he's scored this year where he's made that late run into the box. He's really added that to his game. Lampard was the best at it, arriving really late. He's really starting to show that now."

The tougher part of the international game is that rotating cast, the lengthy time between camps and a system not built like that of a club. "It's about learning and being that coach on the pitch yourself," Rice quipped on midfield battles.

Fast-forwarding to the current day for a brief moment, Rice has already amassed 64 caps (after switching allegiances from Ireland) and played in two European Championship finals. There aren't any winners' medals to show for that just yet, but that experience will almost certainly come in handy at some point.

Two of the top contenders for Rice's signature in the summer of 2023 were reigning Premier League champions Manchester City and Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich. The latter in particular made a compelling pitch to Rice, with Thomas Tuchel holding personal talks with the midfielder over the phone and in person to try and give them the edge, if not get a deal over the line. Such a push from such a club spoke volumes at Rice's quality and the intensity of the race to sign him.

Alas, Rice's preference was to remain in England, and he told The Athletic that Arsenal's project was "more exciting" than City's. Considering the Gunners had just been pipped to the title by Pep Guardiola's side in agonising fashion, it gave the club a renewed sense of optimism they were trending upwards and their day in the sun would come.

It was a massive coup for Arsenal in every other sense to boot. Only four players before Rice had cost £50m or more - Ben White (£50m), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£56m), Kai Havertz a few weeks earlier (£65m) and infamous flop Nicolas Pepe (£72m). To make the jump to nine figures and make Rice the most expensive Brit of all time at £105m with add-ons included, the club had to be certain of his success, that he ticked every box to run the midfield. They weren't left with any regret.

Rejecting City, on top of being an obviously great player regardless, put Rice in the good books of Arsenal fans to begin with. And then he started playing football matches for them. And then he entered a different stratosphere.

A stoppage-time strike in the latest of 3-1 wins over old-age rivals Manchester United in September 2023 gave Rice liftoff. "That goal was insane, just how it happened. Just because it was against United, 96th minute. It was crazy. Incredible," he later reflected. Even though Arsenal stumbled through the first half of that season, Rice's transition into an important player in Mikel Arteta's setup was seamless, and he was rewarded with a nomination for The Best FIFA Men's Player award in the winter.

"I love his presence on the pitch. He's there and he’s got something special, I felt it when [Arsenal] played against him, that's why I was mad to sign him. You get a feeling about players and I wanted him to be part of our team," Arteta said a few months after Rice's arrival.

Under Arteta's guidance, Arsenal have shaken off their flimsy tag in matches against their rivals, and Rice is a member of his squad who in particular gave them an extra dimension in those battles. "In the big games against the big clubs, I've played really well and, as a club, we've collected a really good number of points in those matches," he said in April 2024. "In those games, you always want to stand up and be counted. The way [Liverpool] play, the football they play, it's like a chaos game that they create. Balls in behind from Trent Alexander-Arnold constantly, picking up the second balls, re-delivering, second phase, third phase, fourth phase - they're just relentless at it. And at Anfield, especially the Kop end, goals get sucked in. But that game I absolutely loved."

Even though Rice is now a player with almost 400 senior appearances under his belt, he's still learning and adapting, continuing to develop and evolve. It never stops. In 2023-24, he put up career highs in both goals and assists, registering seven and 10, respectively. At times deployed as Arsenal's deepest midfielder, he recently revealed his preference to play higher up.

"I've loved it," he told CBS Sports of the transition. "I feel like I've got the ability to play No.8 and produce goals, produce numbers. It's about having that self belief, self confidence. Obviously when I came here last year, I was playing six a lot, then moved into the eight at the back end of the season and then had a conversation with the manager at the start of the season. He said 'you feel like you can do way more for us, you know you're so athletic and so strong, you can score goals with your left foot, right foot'. He'd give me the confidence to play there.

"I love just getting the ball and travelling with it and trying to make things happen for my team-mates. I think the No.8 position is really suiting me at the minute."

The icing on the cake. The cherry on top. That little bit of chocolate at the end of a Cornetto, that extra hour of sleep you get when the clocks go back. Not only can Rice take corners for set piece-mad Arsenal, but he can score directly from free-kicks.

His brace against Real Madrid will be remembered for years on end regardless of whether the Gunners blow their 3-0 lead or not. There's no way to even adequately describe what those goals felt like in the moment inside the Emirates Stadium. It's as if the Gunners had made a sacrifice to the gods by way of explosion, and the detonation was the release of eternal ecstasy. The bang popped like the tectonic plates underneath the ground smashed against each other, and if a mountainous volcano emerged behind the North Bank in the aftermath, you would have understood why.

Of course, it was not just the quality and uniqueness of Rice's free-kicks - one bent round the wall a la the onlooking Roberto Carlos, one so far into the top corner not even the great Thibaut Courtois could do anything about it - that made them special, but also the occasion. This was Arsenal's belated arrival on the stage of European contenders, and they introduced themselves in the brashest fashion possible. You can't ignore that kind of noise.

It shouldn't take those goals to recognise Rice as the elite midfielder he is, particularly within the borders of England. What it did do was bring the world's attention, and that puts you in a different conversation, moving from national to international sensation.

Rice will not end his career with the Conference League as his only major trophy. He won't. There's no guarantees in life or football, but that feels as nailed on as could be. Both he and Arsenal are on the path to physical success, and even if he doesn't find it with the Gunners, then there would be plenty of others willing to add him to their own honour roll.

This is a 26-year-old who has only gotten better with every passing season of his career. He is durable and dependable as much as he is brilliant, a leader on and off the pitch who provides tangibles and intangibles in equal amount. Rice shouldn't be thinking about putting a ceiling on what he can further achieve.

If Arsenal do go on to win the Champions League this year, does that propel him into Ballon d'Or contention? Would he be in that race in future if he sweeps up league titles and international tournaments, potentially even as captain? Why couldn't he play another 100 times for England and become their leading appearance-maker? Would that make him Sir Declan Rice? And, to bring this point to a close, why can't he go down as a better player and legend than Vieira?

These are the open-ended questions peering over the horizon, and that they aren't even dismissible tells you everything about how far Rice has come, and the huge steps he still has the ability to make.