Midfielder will be part of the conversation for a Ballon d’Or if he continues his ascent with trophies for club and country
eclan Rice likes to call it “clean feedback”, which sounds like a euphemism for a bollocking, though he would probably say that is a misconception. Rather, it is part of the reason why Rice is being discussed as one of the best players in the world.
“You can’t eff and blind, you can’t bully people,” says Terry Westley, the head of West Ham’s academy when Rice was there. “But we should be able to have a conversation and say: ‘Look, that ain’t quite good enough and we want to help you because this is what we need to do.’
“Either they walk out your office and go: ‘Fucking bloke, don’t know what he’s talking about. I’m going to tell my dad or my agent.’ Or you walk out the office and go: ‘Right, what do I need to do? Let’s get on with the work.’”
It is fairly clear which camp Rice fell into. One Champions League-winning coach recently privately described him as “the best midfielder in the world”, which even when he was a £105m signing for Arsenal two years ago seemed a stretch. To longtime observers, his rise has occurred gradually and then all at once, encapsulated in an astonishing performance against Real Madrid in April when he scored two brilliant goals from free-kicks in a 3-0 win.
