Is Declan Rice Worth 100M? We Take A Look At The Numbers

With West Ham having slapped a £100m price tag on midfielder Declan Rice, it has led to some rival fans questioning why the Hammers rate him so highly.

Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City are all thought to be keen on the England star and supporters from those teams have raised a few eyebrows at the player’s valuation.

So, today, we thought we would compare Rice to some of the best holding midfielders in world football: Casemiro, Sergio Busquets, Fabinho and N’Golo Kante.

Press the next page as we look at the numbers from the five players’ careers to assess whether Rice should be included in their company.

Tackling And Interceptions

A big part of a holding midfielder’s job is to win tackles and intercept the ball, and in this area, Rice’s stats do hold up pretty well against the best in the world.

The West Ham star averages 4.55 tackles and interceptions per 90 minutes, which is more than Casemiro (4.54), Fabinho (4.11) and Busquets (3.86) but less than Kante (5.23).

Pressures

Again, successfully pressing an opponent is a critical part of being a defensive midfield player and while, it can be somewhat dependent on a team’s style of play, it is a stat that we can use to fairly compare players.

Rice doesn’t fare quite as well on this metric. The England international averages 5.57 successful pressing actions per 90, which is bettered by Kante (7.44), Busquets (6.34) and Casemiro (6.28). Fabinho (5.06) is the only one who is worse in this area.

Carries

Getting the ball and running with it for five yards in the final two-thirds of the pitch is classed as a progressive carry. This tells us how press-resistant a player is (i.e their ability to keep possession when under pressure).

Rice is the fourth-best of the five here. The 22-year-old averages 3.66 progressive carries per 90 minutes, with Casemiro (2.98) the only player to carry the ball less frequently. Kante (6.09), Fabinho (5.31) and Busquets (4.24) are all ahead of him.

Progressive Passes

To be a world-class holding midfielder, you do need to be able to progress the ball up the pitch, rather than simply passing it sideways or backwards. A progressive pass is simply a ball that goes forward at least 10 yards in the final two-thirds of the pitch (or is passed into the penalty box).

On this metric, Rice is the worst of the five players we are looking at. He averages only 2.88 progressive passes per 90 compared to Busquets (6.44), Kante (4.91) Fabinho (4,77) and Casemiro (4.00)

In conclusion, then, it is safe to say that Rice is not a £100m player quite yet, but he is already competing with the best in his position when we look at certain areas, so the potential is clearly there for him to become world-class.

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