Declan Rice's actions after Arsenal's defeat to Bayern Munich speaks volumes

At the final whistle, a few Arsenal players collapsed to the Allianz turf, but not Declan Rice.

He might have gone down on his haunches briefly but was soon stood bolt upright, striding around the field, congratulating Bayern players, shaking the hands of his team-mates and making a beeline for the travelling Arsenal supporters, hands raised above his head in applause for their backing.

No crying, no hiding. To say Rice did not live up to his billing as the potential game-decider in this contest would be an understatement.

In fact, it is fair to say that his contribution over the two legs was ordinary and he was certainly notable by his absence when Joshua Kimmich’s head powered home the goal that gave Bayern Munich their place in the last four of the Champions League.

Rice has been heralded as one of the Premier League’s best players in this current campaign, a signing of the season. There is now a good chance he will not win a trophy in his first season with Arsenal.

But no matter how far below his usual standards his performance was, Rice will front up, Rice will learn from it. And what applies to him applies to so many of the Arsenal players that failed to play to their potential in Munich - and, indeed, at the Emirates in the first leg.

This is a learning curve for Rice, this is a learning curve for this Arsenal squad. In terms of talent and quality, they were probably on a par with Harry Kane’s Bayern but in terms of nous, in terms of game management, there was a considerable gap.

When this Arsenal team got into the final third, for example - and that was not particularly often - they either panicked or failed to take the right option. Their nerves made execution difficult. Nothing summed that up better than when goalkeeper David Raya went up for a corner in the final seconds and Bukayo Saka failed to beat the first man with his corner-kick.

That, in essence, was the story of Arsenal’s night - sloppiness brought on by their edginess. And a lack of a high-quality target man did not help, either.

But it has been a long, demanding season for a squad that is still not deep enough to become a true powerhouse of European football. They had their moments of possibility over the two legs, not least when Ben White missed that great chance to put the Gunners two up in the first half of the first leg.

But they were outsmarted, outthought and outplayed by a far more worldly-wise team. And when that final whistle went, Rice knew it. He will learn from it, his team-mates will learn from it.

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