Sixty-three matches. That’s the number Declan Rice racked up for Arsenal and England during the 2025-26 season, a campaign that ended with the Gunners lifting the Premier League trophy for the first time in 22 years. Rice’s reward for that marathon? A lingering injury, a Player of the Season award, and a World Cup to play through while his body screams at him to stop.
Rice described the schedule as “obscene” and “crazy,” which, if anything, feels like understatement when you actually count the games. Sixty-three competitive fixtures in a single season means Rice was playing roughly every 5.8 days for the better part of a year.
The price of winning
Arsenal clinched the Premier League title on May 19, 2026, with one match still remaining in their campaign. It was the club’s first league championship since the 2003-04 “Invincibles” season, a drought so long that an entire generation of Arsenal supporters had never seen their team finish top of the table.
Rice was central to that achievement. His performances across the season earned him Arsenal’s Player of the Season honor.
