Arsenal's Title Chase: Rice Urged to Shift to Right-Back

Arsenal are three wins from immortality, the Premier League and Champions League trophies suddenly within touching distance. Yet as the stakes rise, one of Mikel Arteta’s most influential players is being told he may have to step away from centre stage.

Declan Rice, the heartbeat of this Arsenal side, is being urged to move to right-back for the run-in.

Rice, the midfield general, told to step aside

The debate stems from that fraught, controversial 1-0 win at West Ham. When Ben White limped off with an MCL injury, Arteta shuffled Rice out to right-back in the first half. The reshuffle didn’t last. Arsenal began to lose control in midfield, and Rice was quickly restored to his natural territory in the centre of the pitch.

Now White is out for the rest of the season. Jurrien Timber’s fitness remains a concern. The calendar is brutal: two league games to try to secure a first Premier League title since 2004, then Paris Saint-Germain in a Champions League final on May 30 that could define a generation.

At precisely this moment, Paul Scholes believes Rice should be the one to compromise.

On The Good, The Bad and The Football podcast, the Manchester United great made his case bluntly: “Declan Rice looks like he would suit playing at right-back to me. He can play there. He’s not a big creator anyway.”

It was both a tactical suggestion and a pointed critique. Rice, a £100m-plus midfielder who has driven Arsenal’s title charge with his power, composure and big-game temperament, reduced in Scholes’ eyes to a defensive workhorse who can be shifted wide without losing much in the final third.

Nicky Butt, Scholes’ co-host and another United stalwart, drew the comparison with Roy Keane’s versatility. “Roy Keane played right-back for two-thirds of a season,” Butt said. Scholes didn’t hesitate: “He played there loads and was brilliant.”

The implication is clear. If Keane could do it for the good of the team, Rice should too.

Arteta does have an alternative. Cristhian Mosquera is a more natural defender and can operate on the right. Yet with the season on a knife-edge, the temptation to trust Rice’s athleticism, recovery pace and defensive instincts in that channel will be strong.

The trade-off is obvious. Shift Rice to right-back and you potentially lose the dominance he brings in the middle, the very platform on which Arsenal have built their title push. Keep him in midfield and you risk a makeshift solution in a key defensive slot against opponents who will target any weakness.

Arsenal’s season might hinge on where their manager decides his most reliable lieutenant can do the least damage and the most good.

Quiet goodbye as Kiwior move confirmed

While the noise around Rice grows, Arsenal have quietly ticked off their first piece of summer business.

Jakub Kiwior’s exit to Porto has been confirmed as a permanent transfer. The Polish defender joined the Portuguese club on a season-long loan last year with an option to buy, and Porto moved last week to trigger that clause.

The deal is worth £14 million, potentially rising to £19m, and ties Kiwior to Porto on a four-year contract. Arsenal chose not to trumpet the sale with a big announcement. Instead, it slipped into their weekly loan round-up.

“Jakub Kiwior’s move to Porto has now become permanent following the Dragaos’ Liga Portugal title triumph last weekend,” the club noted. The 24-year-old was an unused substitute in Porto’s 3-1 defeat at AFS, a game in which the newly crowned champions rotated heavily.

For Arsenal, it is a neat, almost understated piece of business at a time when every headline is dominated by the chase for silverware. One defender out, questions over another’s role intensifying, and a season that could end in a double or in heartbreak.

Burnley at home on Monday is next. Then one more league fixture. Then PSG in Budapest.

Somewhere in that stretch, Arteta must decide: does he keep his midfield general where he is most feared, or does Declan Rice spend the defining weeks of Arsenal’s modern history patrolling the touchline instead of the centre circle?