Agree to disagree on his quality. I've been a big fan of his for many years and I think he'd be a perfect second choice in our MF. Be that as it may, please replace that name with your favourite DM.
QuincyAbeyie Yep. Wonder what he sees in him, given that he flopped at both Newcastle and Dortmund already. No doubt he's been good at Spciedad but his teammate is even better
Bernard Woolley It will mean that Rice will have to learn to play two positions
He's played both for WHU, shouldn't be a big change to learn it in our system.
I think if we keep Partey we certainly need to use all our midfielders regularly. We have CL this season and I'm not sure the players who played most in the league last season can take an extra 10 to 16 games at that level wihtout falling away in April and May again.
Had several beers and cocktails. Rice is an amazing signing. Can’t quite believe it
lorddulaarsenal I'd been gearing up to talk shit on this guy when Chelsea or City got him, started already whenever watching England. Was a defense mechanism and inferiority complex, but now it's time to pivot hard.
I think he will be what we need him to be, but the price tag is high. He cannot control that though.
USArsenal price tag is out issue, not his. Unlike Pepe, he goes into a squad that should complement his skills. Pepe was us acting like influencers on Instagram, just buying random overpriced kit cos it’s fashionable and newsworthy.
Funny you mention Pepe, loads of stuff on twitter today comparing Pepe and Sanchos first 2 seasons after their hefty price tags. Guess who was better.
Random overpriced player is so unfair. By many metric he was a top signing for us. Many top clubs were chasing him.
He failed here by one way or another, it happens but let's not discredit our great effort to land him in the first place
Bayern were interested in Pepe but not at the £80m price point. They felt he was too raw and they were right.
I wonder if Pepe would have fared better coming into this side. He has flaws in his game that are hard to overlook, but also feels very much like wrong place wrong time for him.
goon Competing with Saka sharply limited Pépé's opportunities then and would again now, but you'd hope Arteta learns to rotate more generously now his own job's far more secure.
He wasn't able to adapt tactically to what Arteta wanted. And too often defensively switched off
he's as good as partey. that should be taken as a compliment tbh.
Similar passing accuracy should be paired with the fact that Partey plays more difficult passes.
QuincyAbeyie and a higher volume, I'd wager, considering how ball dominant we are
But Rice has worse teammates
His reading of the game and interceptions are at an elite level. Here's hoping playing with better players and a more progressive manager introduces some flair to his passing game which at the moment is pretty vanilla.
He’s fine. You don’t need every player to be absolute top drawer with their passing. He’s good at what he needs to be good at
Vanilla... Rice Rice Baby.
flobaba
