LONDON — Arsenal paid the big bucks to sign Declan Rice for a reason.
In truth, it wasn’t primarily for his goal scoring, but then again, the £105 million man has made it a personal mission to improve his end product, and Sunday’s 3-1 victory over Manchester United was quite a spectacular way to start.
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Rice’s first Gunners goal came in the sixth minute of added time with the score level at 1-1, squeezing a deflected shot inside André Onana‘s near post to spark Emirates Stadium euphoria. The game had been on a knife edge after Martin Odegaard cancelled out Marcus Rashford‘s first-half opener for United with substitute Alejandro Garnacho denied what could have been the winning goal by a marginal — but correct — VAR review for offside in the 88th minute.
Yet Rice turned the game decisively in Arsenal’s favour before Gabriel Jesus added a third even deeper into added-on time to spark the sort of jubilation associated with a title run, rather than in early September. Arsenal are often criticised for over-celebrating, but the explanation here is simple. Of course, the opponent — an old adversary — makes winning sweeter but of more immediate pertinence is the need to maintain pace with Manchester City, an admittedly absurd premise at first glance given the Premier League season is only four games old.
