Rice is working alongside more success-hungry superstars at Arsenal and appears to have, in Mikel Arteta, the best manager by his side when it comes to pursuing personal perfection.
Rice said of his coach at the Emirates: “At the start of the season, the manager pushed me a lot. I think after two games, I was in his office. He pulled me in. He wasn’t happy about a few things.”
Asked what those talks were about, Rice added: “There were a few clips, just of things that I wasn’t doing right. Things that are basics in terms of running and tracking your men and with the ball, positional-wise, that he wasn’t too happy with. And like I said, at the start of the season, I realised myself I probably wasn’t at my best level.
“The good thing with this manager is that he knows when to put the knife in me in a little bit, just to give me a nudge, and he knows that will get the best out of me. Because I love to listen, I love to take it all in. I don’t see that as a bad thing that he has told me that. When he said that to me, I said to myself: ‘I do need to up it here!'”