Roddy Collins: Declan Rice is not in the same league as a great like Roy Keane

Declan Rice scored one goal and created another on Saturday to help a very rich Arsenal team beat a financially restricted Bournemouth one.

The one pundit who has Rice summed up in a nutshell is Roy Keane. “Needs to score more goals,” Keane said, way back in October.One journalist, who I know personally, texted me the following information on Saturday: “Do you know that Rice has now scored more goals this season than Roy Keane did in United’s Treble winning year?”Declan Rice is no Roy Keane. Never was. Never will be. I wouldn’t put them in the same conversation.

Similarly with West Ham. “I love the club,” he said. Love led to divorce when he had the scent of Arsenal in his nostrils.They’ll see him for what he is, a good player, but not a great one. A man who plays to the gallery and says the things he knows fans want to hear.When Keane didn’t play in the 2002 World Cup, I was gutted. I wanted to see him on the biggest stage.

O’Neill showed his integrity as a man and a manager. He could have been cynical and tricked Rice, and years earlier, Jack Grealish, into a situation where they end up playing competitively for Ireland at a very young age. He made it clear he wanted them to declare for Ireland and that he would pick them once they were ready but he was not going to misguide either Rice or Grealish or their parents.And it is time Ireland fans showed O’Neill a bit of respect for that decision. It is not his fault Rice and Grealish left to play for England.

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