Declan Rice described Gabriel Martinelli’s late finish to earn a point against as ‘unbelievable’ and said it was fully deserved for the team’s performance.

After trailing to an eighth-minute counter-attacking goal from Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, we dictated much of the rest of the game from then on, but looked like finishing empty-handed until Gabi’s late, late strike.

It was the second-time in the space of a week that Gabi had emerged from the bench to mae the difference, following his goal and assist against Athletic Club on Tuesday.

“When you come off the bench, at that point of the game, 60, 70, 80 minutes, the game’s a completely different game to the start of the game,” Declan said afterwards. “The game’s opened up, it’s more stretched, and for players like Gabi, they’re unbelievable when they do start. But when they come on, their strength, which is their pace, their dribbling, helps them massively because there’s so much space, and in the end, that run and finish, was unbelievable. We fully deserved it.”

The midfielder added: “I think the feeling of me being on the pitch, knowing my players, my team, the manager’s thoughts, the players’ thoughts, and speaking to them is that, with the ball, it was probably the first time since I’ve been here, that we’ve dominated Man City like that, in terms of passing the ball. 

“The way we pegged them back, the way we made them play a completely different way to how they’ve ever played before, I think that shows a big respect to us on what we’re doing. Obviously, the first goal was a bit disappointing because it started on the edge of their box and ended up in the back of our net. Usually, we were on that type of counter-attack, but to come back, to keep pushing, to not let our heads drop, it would have been easy, but we kept fighting and showing the mentality that we needed. In the end, I think we got a great goal from Gabi, so we definitely deserved something from the game.”

The draw takes us back up to second place in the Premier League, after five games, and Declan said there are plenty of positives to take from pour start to the season, especially considering the opposition we’ve already faced. 

“I think arguably we’ve had a tougher start than any team in the league,” he said. “We’ve played some of the best teams already. Obviously, we’ve got Newcastle next week, then West Ham, it doesn’t get any easier. It’s been a solid start, obviously, the defeat away at Liverpool really hurt us. Obviously, if we’d have lost today, that would have been a real kick in the teeth, but to get a point was important. The main thing is to keep winning games in this league, and that’s what we’re going to keep trying to do. Keep staying positive and keep trying to dominate football matches. So, let’s keep pushing and keep supporting everyone.”

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