Fulham vs Arsenal: What did Declan Rice make about the defeat at Craven Cottage?

Arsenal did not have an ideal ending to the calendar year after suffering two losses on the bounce in the Premier League. Despite taking the lead through Bukayo Saka, the Gunners conceded twice via Raul Jimenez and Bobby De Cordova-Reid, as they lost 2-1 at Fulham. As a result, Mikel Arteta’s side have now gone three games without a win in the league. With this loss, Arsenal have missed out on an opportunity to go to the top of the table.

Big-money summer signing Declan Rice gave an honest assessment of the match, as he felt that “it’s not good enough.” “Being brutally honest, it’s not good enough. The standards that we’ve set over the course of the season so far have not been met in the last two games,” Rice, quoted on Arsenal.com, had said after Arsenal’s defeat to Fulham in the Premier League.

Declan Rice on Fulham loss

He added: “The loss at home to West Ham was tough to take and today we really wanted to bounce back and we had that on our mind. We really wanted to go out and started quick, went 1-0 up and then it’s about pushing, it’s about mentality, it’s about desire, knowing you’re going to fight for every ball. In the end, they won more duels, won more battles and sat in tight and in the end we weren’t good enough. When you’re not good enough in the Premier League you lose games and it’s a really tough one to take.”

Rice felt that they had some chances in the game but failed to take them, as he believed that the last few results have not met the standards set by the manager. “It’s easy saying that we should kick on but Fulham are a good side. We still had plenty of the ball and some chances. Martinelli put one wide and we had one in the second half, but it’s one of those days and it’s really tough to take. You can see that we want to be competing for the Premier League, we want to be up there fighting and the last few results haven’t been up to the standards that we’ve set and the standards the manager has set. We’ve let ourselves down today and we’ve let the fans down,” he stated.

However, the English midfielder is not going to press the panic button just yet, as he believes that they have to stick together in moments like this. “Of course not. It’s not ideal when you want to be a top team, are striving to be a top team and want to be top players, you need to demand more from each other. We need to demand more from ourselves, push each other more when times are going tough. Times like now are times when we stick together. It’s been a great year for Arsenal all round and we go into the new year with positivity. We play Liverpool and try to bounce back in the FA Cup now,” he elaborated.

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