RICE RICE BABY

Recent months have been memorable for England's rapping midfielder - after lifting a European trophy in his last game for West Ham, he joined Arsenal for a club record £105m in July. As he tells FFT, he's determined to guide the Gunners to glory

- Chris Flanagan

"HOW OLD IS THAT TORTOISE?”

Declan Rice may be the most expensive British footballer of all time these days, but he’s lost none of his curiosity about the age of domesticated reptiles. Arsenal’s £105m club-record signing is back on familiar turf this afternoon, meeting FourFourTwo at our base for the day – a location in leafy Cobham, complete with a pet tortoise wandering around quietly in the background. It’s 15, thanks for asking.

Coincidentally, we’re just a few hundred yards from Chelsea’s training ground, where the Kingston-born midfielder learned his trade between the ages of seven and 14. “I spent the first part of my career coming to this area, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday,” he explains to FFT. Today, our location has nothing to do with the Blues and everything to do with convenience – Rice is popping in to see us on his way home from his new training base at London Colney.

FFT have sat down with the 24-year-old twice before, in August 2019 and November 2021. Despite a significant increase in fame and status over the last four years, he’s still the same down-to-earth personality as he ever was, happily chatting to everyone after arriving for his photoshoot, making small talk about the household pet and instantly cracking a smile for the camera when we’re ready to get started. Soon, he’s donning Arsenal’s cult classic bruised banana away shirt from the early 1990s and chuckling self-deprecatingly, having almost toppled over when asked to lean forward for one particular photograph.