daredevil Rice's biggest problem is that he's not a great forward passer who can quickly penetrate the lines. That's what makes Busquets and Rodri so good and Partey is also excellent in this area. Dribbling through the lines is less efficient than passing through it. He does tick a lot of other boxes but it will be interesting to see how spending 100m on a player who isn't better than Partey will unfold.
I've also been wondering about this. If the idea is a midfield of Ødegaard, Rice and Partey you'd think that Partey's elite passing would be a better fit than Rice who's great at carrying, but at best decent at progressive passes.
I guess they have a plan though since they're going above and beyond to create this midfield. If we invest 170m in the midfield without making it significantly better than last season, it will be really disappointing.
