‘Beautiful’ – Alan Shearer singles out 20-touch demon who had Arsenal purring v PSV

Arsenal may be suffering an inexplicable forward selection headache owing to the club’s ongoing injury crisis.

However, they found themselves far from struggling against Dutch champions PSV in the opening 45 minutes of action.

Mikel Arteta’s visiting outfit racked up three goals – courtesy of efforts from Jurrien Timber, Ethan Nwaneri, and, somewhat fortunately, Mikel Merino – to the hosts’ sole effort from the penalty spot.

So far, so good, at the time of writing, for the Gunners in their bid to progress in the Champions League – a competition they lasted reached the final in back in 2006.

Declan Rice’s quality shone through in the Netherlands

The plaudits will naturally go to the goalscorers, and not entirely unreasonably so, given the quality of the opening couple of goals at the Philips Stadium.

However, it shouldn’t go unforgotten that one man arguably had the North London-based outfit purring in the Netherlands.

Declan Rice got the Gunners firing initially with his sensational lofted ball inside PSV’s 18-yard box, duly met by Timber’s head.

Sofascore have the England international on a 7.2/10 rating (at the time of writing) having picked up the following stats:

→ 24 touches

→ 1 assist

→ 13/16 passes completed (81%)

→ 2 key passes

→ 2 big chances created

→ 1 dribble completed

→ 2/4 duels completed (ground and air)

Alan Shearer was impressed with what Rice did to PSV

Arsenal’s travelling faithful weren’t the only ones clearly enjoying Rice’s contributions on the football pitch.

Attending pundit Alan Shearer applauded what was ‘a beautiful little ball’ from the 26-year-old midfielder to find his fullback teammate.

“Arsenal might have been fortunate at one end but a minute later it is brilliant play at the other,” the 54-year-old spoke on Amazon Prime’s broadcast.

“Declan Rice dinks a beautiful little ball to the far post and he has to hope someone is going to get on the end of it and that someone was Jurrien Timber. What a header.”

The BBC MOTD pundit went on to add: “It has not gone unnoticed the work that Declan Rice has done in that midfield. Lots of energy to run in support of the forwards as well as protect that back four.”

It may already be curtains for the Londoners’ ambitions of lifting a first English top-flight title since 2003.

However, if they can manage to keep Rice fit for the remainder of 2024/25, it’s not out of the question for the West Ham man to guide this Arsenal side to Champions League success. Particularly if he can keep up such impressive showings in Europe!