Declan Rice has revealed that Mikel Arteta gave him an icebreaking task on his first day at Arsenal, leaving the midfielder a bit embarrassed.

After his goal against Manchester United ahead of the international break, Declan Rice seems to have found his place in the hearts of the Arsenal fans very quickly.

It can take some time to settle in at a new club, but Rice admitted to the Tubes & Ange Golf Life YouTube channel that Arteta had a cheeky way to speed things up.

“I was a bit nervous,” Rice said (via TBR). “The first day I was down there on the Sunday, the lads weren’t in but I come out of the physio room and Arteta, just like little things he does, he put like a sticker on me saying ‘hello, I’m the new person’.

“He just walked in and put it on my chest. All the 18s and 21s [were] in the canteen and I’m walking through trying to hide my chest. Just little things like that.”

Rice had a bit of an advantage over your average new signing at Arsenal, as he already knew a lot of the players pretty well.

Aaron Ramsdale, Bukayo Saka, and Ben White have all spent time with Rice on international duty in the past, and Eddie Nketiah knew Rice from their England youth days.

On top of that, Rice has been playing in the Premier League for a number of years now, so he’ll have known many of the other players as opponents.

Still, it’s no bad thing to have a helping hand in breaking the ice with your new teammates, even if it did leave Rice feeling a little embarrassed at the time.