To me this absolutely reeks of being a bad idea.
Rice is in his prime. He might find more levels, but chances are he won't. He's hugely famous in England, expected to move to a big English club, and Moyes goes on about £150m to soften up any suitors for an actual fee of £100m.
Not saying he's a bad player. He doesn't have to be a bad player for this to be a bad idea. The parameters on this would be heading into Harry Maguire areas … let's just find someone else who's got the same skill set but not the same fame.
one of my arguments for this is that i don't think he has actually hit his prime, and is coming off a typical low season of a good player who's heart isn't entirely in the current project. i also feel he has underrated skills in his locker and can shine in a system as specific as arteta's. for anything around 80m and under, i'd be happy for us to bring him in
also, i think we need to come to terms with fact that partey is a bit of unicorn, and it's highly unlikely we find a like-for-like to take over from him. physically powerful players that also provide high quality progressive passing, press resistance and dribbling don't fall off trees. you usually get 2 out of those 3 qualities. we'll probably aim for the next iteration of our midfield to have the same qualities globally speaking, but they'll be distributed differently among the 3 guys in there.
