In the aftermath of Arsenal’s 2-2 draw against Chelsea at the weekend, Declan Rice revealed that his long-range effort was inspired by David Beckham after he fired from 30 yards to kickstart the Gunners’ remarkable comeback.
Rice was at the right place to take advantage of a poor pass from Blues keeper Robert Sanchez to score from distance with 13 minutes to go, which gave Arsenal enough motivation to see Leandro Trossard equalise six minutes later and take home a point from Stamford Bridge.
Rice believes that watching David Beckham in action the previous night may have been the driving force behind him scoring via a stunning effort.
Rice admits Beckham inspired stunner against Chelsea
“Everyone’s been talking about this Beckham documentary, and I watched it for the first time last night,” Rice admitted post-match. “The first couple of clips are the game against Wimbledon where he scored from the halfway line and I took a lot of belief from that.
“I was just thinking that it was bizarre that I watched it last night, and then obviously today taking that shot first time and scoring. It was a special goal to kickstart our comeback, you’ve got to keep shooting – if you shoot, you score!
“In a player’s mind, you get a split second to make a decision. It’s the quickest thing that you have to do; you’ve got to think whether you pass the ball, Leo was free in front of me, or you go for goal yourself. I’ve just watched it back, it was a great finish so I was happy with that.”
Rice also admitted that he was not pleased with the result, saying that Arsenal could indeed have won the game if they played better in the first half.
He added: “It’s a bitter feeling to be honest, because if we know if we did in the second half what we did in first, we would have won the game.
“In football, things throw out surprises and in the first half, we weren’t as good as we wanted to be. In the second half, I feel like we showed that character again like we did against Man City, and to get the point in the end was a really important result.
“[Being 2-0 down] is tough, it’s really tough. I think you always want to go into games thinking that you’ll get three points, but from the way we came back from 2-0 down away from home, the Chelsea fans and players were really up for it, we showed that fight and character.
“Even though we didn’t win, there are positives to be taken there. The mentality is there, the belief is there that we don’t want to get beaten, and being the best that we can.”
