Rice: You need your best players on the field at all times – Arseblog News

Arsenal must avoid more costly disciplinary action if they want to stay at the top of the table this season, according to Declan Rice.

The England international was full of praise for the way his team-mates fought in Bournemouth this afternoon, but after William Saliba's red card on the half-hour mark, the Gunners collapsed under pressure from the home side and deservedly won 2-2. 0 won.

Here's what Rice had to say when answering questions from Sky Sports.

About the nature of the defeat…

The fact is we kicked ourselves in the foot three times in eight games this season. We got away with it twice, at home in Brighton and away at City, but you can't always be lucky. At the end of tonight Bournemouth kept trying and won 2-0. Look, I'm proud of us as a group of players because we fought and believed we could win even with ten men. I thought we played really well even with ten men, but the naivety of it is that we have to stop making mistakes. We want 11 players for 90 minutes, that's how you win football games. That's how I see it today.

Why Arsenal struggled to repeat the performance with 10 men at the start of the season…

To be honest, with 10 men we showed a lot of character and personality to stay in the game. As I said, Martinelli had the big chance. Listen, the goalkeeper made a great save, he read Martinelli's shot, a minute later they go up the other end, but a routine that we are usually very strong in did us in. We have no regrets tonight other than the fact that we can't keep making stupid mistakes, especially if you want to compete and be at the top at the end of the season. You always have to have your best players on the field because when you're down to 10 men, the other players also have a mountain to climb. The belief in the group of players is so, so great. We just spoke there as a group, it's such a big month coming up, we're going to stick together. This is football, this is what happens, it's a rollercoaster game, it's ups and downs, it's never going to be perfect, but the most important thing is that we stick together and go in the right direction.