“He sometimes doesn’t need to have the armband. When he talks, people listen and pay attention. He has got the natural ability to do that.”
Declan Rice was only seven months into his Arsenal career when manager Mikel Arteta publicly praised his player’s leadership qualities.
In the coming weeks, it is his international manager, Thomas Tuchel, who will hope the 27-year-old can have the same effect on his England squad as their vice-captain.
When Rice moved to Arsenal from West Ham United in 2023, he joined a team that had come agonisingly close to winning the Premier League the season prior and was embarking on their first Champions League campaign in seven years.
They had a semi-established leadership group with Martin Odegaard, club captain since July 2022, and long-serving players such as Bukayo Saka and Gabriel, but the then-24-year-old Rice quickly established himself as a vocal leader in the dressing room. The captain without the armband. It’s a role he will continue to play for his country in North America.
Looking back over Rice’s career, being part of England and Arsenal’s leadership teams are not a surprise. He made his West Ham senior debut in 2017 and by 2020, had already worn the captain’s armband.
“I had the honour of having the captain’s armband this season, and it felt really special,” a 21-year-old Rice said in March 2020. “Leading the team out with the armband on was so special. One day, I’d love to be captain.”
Two years later, after Mark Noble’s retirement in 2022, Rice was named permanent captain. “Now Dec has to step up to another level of not just how he plays on the pitch but his leadership off the pitch,” then-West Ham manager David Moyes said at the time of the appointment.
He did exactly what Moyes challenged him to. He started 36 of the club’s 37 Premier League games and led the club to glory in the Conference League in May 2023.
After the move to Arsenal, Rice continued in the same vein and became integral to them challenging and eventually winning the Premier League. Arteta, who in January 2026 revealed that the midfielder often questions his decisions, said in February 2024: “If I had to describe him with a picture, it would be a lighthouse.
“His pressing, he’s overlooking everything, he’s bringing light and clarity and guidance for everybody. That’s his biggest quality: He is a leader.”
Arsenal team-mate Gabriel Jesus spoke of the midfielder’s leadership style in April 2026 and compared him to Vincent Kompany, his former captain from his time at Manchester City. “Declan speaks a lot,” Jesus said. He is a different captain from Martin Odegaard. Martin speaks, but he is very professional and a magician with his feet. He is more of a technical leader. Declan is like Kompany. The leader who encourages you with words.”
His leadership is visible on the pitch. He is often the player barking demands at team-mates, encouraging them after a setback, or being vocal in team huddles. He is often one of the first to join a player after they have scored a goal.
Rice has been a driving force for Arsenal this season (Ulrik Pedersen/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In April 2025, Rice stepped up to help an injury-ravaged Arsenal side record a 3-0 victory over Real Madrid. He did so by scoring two memorable free kicks within 12 minutes of each other at the Emirates Stadium.
The next week in the second leg, cameras caught him psyching up his Arsenal team-mates moments before entering the pitch at a hostile Santiago Bernabeu by saying, “Nothing to fear, let’s go.” They won that game 2-1, and he was named player of the match in both legs. He was also Arsenal player of the year for 2024-25.
He also demonstrated his captain material on the way to leading the club to its first Premier League title in 22 years.
Rice publicly supported new signing Martin Zubimendi as the Spaniard acclimatised to life in north London. “He is unbelievable,” Zubimendi said of Rice. “I watched a lot of him before he came here, and I was struck by his brain. He is top.”
Rice raced back several yards to keep up with an onrushing Joe Willock against Newcastle United in September and make a crucial block. He then played the cross for Mikel Merino’s 84th-minute equaliser before Arsenal went on to win the game 2-1 in added time.
After Riccardo Calafiori dropped out of the starting line-up minutes before kick-off due to an injury, Rice deputised at right-back in a 2-1 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion in December. A memorable moment from that game was a crunching tackle on Maxim De Cuyper that drew a roar of appreciation from the Emirates Stadium crowd. After the tackle, Rice was seen bellowing at the Brighton full-back on the ground while Arsenal began their counter-attack.
And, of course, cameras picked up Rice saying “it’s not done” after a momentum-shattering 2-1 loss to Manchester City in April.
Rice, as he has so often done throughout his Arsenal career, was the first player to speak to the media after the Champions League final penalty shootout defeat to Paris Saint-Germain last month.
Rice, who scored his penalty in the shootout, was seen with a defiant smile after Gabriel’s costly penalty miss and told TNT Sports after the game: “It’s been an incredible season and we’ve given absolutely everything up until this point. I’m so proud of this group and these boys.”
In addition to his obvious leadership qualities and footballing ability, Rice is seemingly liked by the majority of dressing rooms he has been in and clearly makes an effort to integrate into different cultures.
A video from 2022 showed Rice in the West Ham medical room, enthusiastically singing and dancing alongside then team-mates Kurt Zouma and Michail Antonio. Rice also came into the dressing room to celebrate West Ham’s under-18 side winning the FA Youth Cup, rapping along to Lil Baby’s ‘Freestyle’.
At Arsenal’s trophy parade on May 31, videos posted to social media showed the midfielder singing Jamaican dancehall artist Spice’s 2014 song ‘So Mi Like It’ with Noni Madueke, rapping along to JME’s ‘Man Don’t Care’ with Bukayo Saka and then, in what has become his trademark, covering a verse of Vanilla Ice’s ‘Ice Ice Baby’ at the behest of Ben White.
This summer with England, Rice will have a similar role to the one he has excelled in at Arsenal. Harry Kane might hold the captaincy, but there to support him will be Rice. Arsenal and England’s captain without the armband.