Mikel Arteta has admitted he had to make a late call to include Declan Rice in Arsenal’s Champions League quarter-final second leg, highlighting the intense demands of English football.
Declan Rice was a significant doubt to feature against Sporting CP on Wednesday, after an open training session in front of the media on Tuesday revealed his absence.
Yet Rice ended up making the starting lineup, with reports revealing that he’d struggled with an illness in the build up to the quarter-final clash.
Speaking after the game, Mikel Arteta revealed just how close Rice was to missing out, adding that the elimination of all the other English teams from the Champions League shows just how high the physical demands are in this country.
“Declan yesterday was shattered, he had no chance to play today, he wasn’t feeling good at all,” Arteta admitted. “Today, he played 94 minutes at the level that he’s done.
“I know what they are doing, these players. That is the reason why we are the only English team in the competition, because this league and this schedule takes the hell out of you, and it’s very difficult to do what we’ve done.”
It’s true that lots of other countries with teams in the Champions League have made alterations to their schedules to accommodate the UEFA competition.
In France, they’ve scrapped their version of the League Cup and reduced their number of Ligue 1 teams to 18. If Arsenal didn’t have to play the League Cup and the Premier League had two fewer teams, the Gunners would have had 10 fewer matches this campaign.
France also postpone matches to make room for their Champions League clubs to rest prior to big games, and they aren’t the only ones. Arsenal’s quarter-final opponents Sporting had a match rescheduled to give themselves an extra day to prepare for the Gunners.
Like France and Portugal, the German Bundesliga also only has 18 teams, and both PSG and Bayern progressed to the semis ahead of English and Spanish clubs – who play in leagues with 20.
Fortunately, Arsenal’s semi-final opponent will be an Atletico team in a similar position to themselves. But it’s not hard to see why so many top English and Spanish teams have been eliminated at this stage, and why players like Rice might be flagging.