Burnwinter I think the issue is that he spent £170m on the midfield and got the balance wrong. Rice is obviously a top player and has performed for us but he has his strengths and weaknesses like everyone else and Arteta hasn't found the way to balance those. Partey plays like a modern continental/Spanish 6, he makes little short dribbles out of pressure and plays a good forward pass, its what Rodri does and its basically the Busquets template of how to play DM. Rice isn't that player, he doesn't have that pass from deep, when he bursts past someone its with power and he likes to keep going. He's got a good technical level but at his core he plays like a British midfielder. And all thats fine, it works and it can be absolutely brilliant for us. We need the other thing as well though, we need the build up. It made sense that we wanted Caicedo in January because at Brighton he did exactly what we need, his forms not as good at Chelsea but they are a dogshit team who drag everyone down. What I don't get is how Arteta went from seemingly wanting Caicedo and being linked with the likes of Zubimendi, etc and then thought you know what, the way to make this work is to get Kai Havertz. Its just doesn't add up for me and I get the feeling he was distracted by his positional flexibility and having the ability to switch him to a big man up top when needed, etc
We spent £65m on a not very good 8 when we should have bought a 6 and let Rice play 8.
