Chelsea: Declan Rice should not be considered a centerback option

Chelsea is rumored to be interested in a move for West Ham’s Declan Rice, but the Blues are looking to bring him in as a centerback.

Declan Rice’s name has been making the rounds and it seems like Chelsea and Frank Lampard are hell-bent on making Rice a Blue for the 2020/21 season. This would ordinarily be a good signing, but not if he is being brought in to play as a central defender.

It is being said that Rice has everything that Lampard wants in a centerback, including leadership. This is baffling, especially since the most important thing that you should look for in a centerback is if the player is actually a centerback—Rice is not. He may be tall, he may have a good reading of the game, but being a centerback goes beyond all that.

Screening a back four is not the same as actually playing in a back four. As a defensive midfielder, which Rice is, you have certain liberties that you simply don’t have as a centerback. As a centerback, your movement changes completely; the way you tackle, where you tackle and if you tackle are decisions that cannot be taken lightly and are now of more stressed importance.

Declan Rice has made 85 career appearances as a defensive midfielder and 50 as a centerback. That’s a lot of appearances at center back, right? Well, it would be interesting to know that only 16 of the 50 where in the top flight—the rest were in his academy days. Rice mainly featured as a centerback for West Ham in the 2017/18 Premier League season. This was only done when West Ham had injury blows to two of its three starting centerbacks in Jose Fonte and Winston Reid. It is also important to note that Rice only featured in either a back three or a back five, and he wasn’t exemplary. Rice recorded three wins out of 15 in that season as a centerback.

Reviewing his performances for West Ham that season, you can easily see why Slaven Bilic, and then David Moyes did not play Rice as a centerback until they were out of options. It is important to note that Rice was 19 years old at the time, but Rice was a liability in the air. In an Everton game in which West Ham conceded four goals, Rice lost a header to Ashley Williams (6-foot), right after being subbed into the game. Rice is 6-foot-1. He didn’t jump for the ball and he was behind his man; the Blues already have centerbacks that are afraid to jump, they don’t need one more.

In other matches, Rice displayed traits that further showed why he played mainly as a defensive midfielder in his senior career. Rice was continuously running out of his back line, without even bothering to check whether someone was covering him or if he was leaving his teammates exposed. He was, in fact, leaving his teammates exposed.

Rice cannot defend the penalty area well because he doesn’t have the tactical discipline to play as a centerback. Wonder why that is; probably because he is not a centerback. “That was then, Olaoluwa, way to judge a 19-year-old. What about now?” Well, the only centerback appearance he has had this season was against Wolverhampton Wanderers in a 2-0 home defeat. In that match, Rice made no tackles and won only one aerial duel. Even at 21, he is still not winning aerial duels. This is non-negotiable as a centerback. Yes, it is a relatively small sample size to judge a player in a position, and even smaller using recent results, but that is all Chelsea has to work with.

West Ham is a local rival, Rice is an English player and as such Rice would not be a less than expensive transaction. Is it possible that Rice turns out to be the perfect centerback that Chelsea is searching for? Yes. The numbers don’t suggest that though and £60-70 million is a lot of money to perform an experiment with a so-called centerback. You only spend that kind of money if you’re absolutely sure of what you’re getting.

Data and observation suggest that Rice will not solve Chelsea’s defensive problems. Chelsea would be getting a superb defensive midfielder, but a terrible centerback—which is why the Blues should stay away if they consider him the latter.