Declan Rice the Lion; Where he fits into the England squad

In a long personal post shared to his Twitter account, Declan Rice has determined that he will be switching international allegiance from Ireland to England. Now, where does Rice fit into Gareth Southgate’s team?

Here is the statement:

What is clear is that Declan certainly weighed all of his options ahead of making this decision, stepping out of international action for the past few months to clear his mind. Irish fans won’t be happy with him, but the 20-year-old talent only took an opportunity afforded to him on the road to a more prominent future career.

Okay, nitty-gritty out of the way. Let’s see where he fits into the team.

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Ahead of Rice are four players: Jordan Henderson, Eric Dier, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Harry Winks. Currently, Rice should top this list of defensive midfielders, having played more games than all of them this season, and excelling in his newfound midfield role under Manuel Pellegrini (attacking minded manager).

Henderson and Dier are of the old guard. They have bridged the Lampard and Gerrard years after the fallout of Wilshere and Lallana underperforming through injury-heavy careers. They’ve provided England with size and physicality but haven’t been able to push the team forward from the middle of the pitch like Rice prospectively can.

What Gareth Southgate has done is reformed the team as a young, exciting squad that prioritizes fast-paced attacking style football, supported by a strong spine of players. The attack is pretty much set with Sterling, Kane, Alli, Rashford, Lingard, and even Sancho now. All are young players who bring speed and skill.

The young group of keepers looks to be set as well, with Jordan Pickford, Jack Butland, and Nick Pope set to duke it out for starting minutes.

Defenders are there too with Chillwell, Shaw, Trippier, Stones, Maguire, Alexander-Arnold, Walker all under 30. That means the central/defensive midfield is clearly the most in need area of that youthful skill injection and that’s why Rice walks into the starting XI England. With Loftus-Cheek and Winks also being young central midfielders but more inclined to play up the pitch, Rice becomes the defensive rock for the English midfield moving forward.

Declan references multiple times that he had been in talks with Gareth Southgate regarding the decision which is extremely important for me. One thing Southgate has prioritized is revamping the team with youth. He left out players like Jack Wilshere, Adam Lallana, and Wayne Rooney from the World Cup team to bring young players with international futures in front of them. Rice fits in with this plan perfectly.

With a UEFA EURO qualification match coming up on March 22nd against the Czech Republic, Declan Rice should feature in the team. The losers when it comes to Rice’s ascension into the England starting XI are likely to be Henderson and Dier for starting minutes, but also Fabian Delph who could find himself out of a squad spot now with Rice on the team.

Regardless of who he leaves in his wake, Rice has ultimately made the right decision for his footballing career. He’s committed to West Ham as a club player and now has committed to his true home England for his international career. A possible future captain at both.