The most annoying thing about Declan Rice is that he turned out to be this good. It would be so much easier if he were only middling, if he were dutifully toiling away at one of the smartly run data-mining clubs that everyone admires for getting the most out of limited resources. Or better again, obviously, if he was a bust altogether. But no. Rice became the sort of midfielder every team wishes they had. A Premier League winner. A stone-cold certainty for the PFA Team of the Year, every year. Champions League final this weekend. World Cup in a fortnight. Just turned 27 and every bit of the jigsaw falling into place.The second most annoying thing about Rice is that he doesn’t seem to be a bad lad. Now, it’s clearly possible that this is a pose. He was pictured hanging out with Piers Morgan during the week, after all. Then again, that seemed to be the lot of every Arsenal player in the wake of lifting the Premier League trophy. So, who knows?Christian Norgaard left Brentford in order to start precisely one game in Arsenal’s entire league campaign. He went from being club captain of a Premier League club to the equivalent of one of the people who get into the Oscars so they can fill a seat when Ryan Reynolds wants to go for a wazz. Yet even he had Morgan mugging for the camera beside him last Sunday. So maybe we shouldn’t make too much of Rice sharing his moment of glory with the hanger-ons’ hanger-on. It would be a lot easier, though, wouldn’t it? If Rice had turned out to be just another Premier League dose, or a central casting yobbo, or a closed-off millionaire with a rolling troupe of interchangeable pneumatic women on his arm. That would be the ideal, really. You could say what you wanted about him then.But actually, insofar as anyone can judge these things from a distance, Rice appears to be a reasonably decent sort. A couple of weeks back, Stevenage went out of the League One play-offs in the semi-final, prompting their midfielder Dan Kemp to post one of those “Gutted-we-didn’t-get-it-done” messages on his Instagram. Rice was straight into the comments, geeing him up – they’ve been best friends since coming through the Chelsea academy together. Declan Rice was let go from Chelsea at the age of 14. Photograph: Getty Images Famously, Rice was let go from Chelsea at the age of 14. Kemp was with him there and later at West Ham. Their paths diverged, Rice to the very elite tier of the game and Kemp to a noble but workaday existence in the lower leagues. They’re still friends for life. So annoying. The third most annoying thing about Rice is watching Ireland without him. It’s being convinced Ireland would part of the World Cup when it starts in 12 days. It’s applauding the genuine efforts of Josh Cullen, Jason Knight and Jayson Molumby, but knowing all we know about their limits. It’s hoping that Bosun Lawal or Conor Coventry or Joe Hodge can make the leap. It’s cocking an ear to the rave notices Manchester United youngster Jacob Devaney got during his loan spell with St Mirren and wondering, does it mean he’s going to be good enough to do a job for Ireland in a few years? Or worse, fearing it might mean he’s going to be so good that England will soon come calling, carrying a cardboard cut-out of Rice as a visual aid, convincing him it’s a no-brainer to come home to the Three Lions.International Friendly, Stade de France, Paris, 2018: Ireland’s Declan Rice with Nabil Fekir of France. Photograph: Inpho