Gazza M if you can't then Merino is surely the best available midfielder on the planet.
Summer 24
Line of logic doesn't make sense - even if there's no one else available, it still doesn't change the fact that we're missing a critical ingredient and will have to somehow circumvent the issue.
Sure, but it can stop the fanbase from using it as a stick to beat management with.
Now we've got Rice himself, the remaining "Rices" for our midfield are a very short list.
Better at 6 than Jorginho or Partey, or worth shifting Rice to 6 to bring in at 8, or (hollow laugh) somehow better than Ødegaard at 8. League ready, as far under 30 as possible, with low overheads and risks of adaptation and development.
Zubimendi, De Jong, Kimmich, Locatelli, Guimaraes are almost (if not entirely) ruled out as unavailable, disinclined, crocked or too old, unless we do a madness like offering PIF £150m: the Gulf monarchy equivalent of shipping coal to Newcastle.
The "Trossard" is someone like Merino, or could've been a player like Luiz and Onana but they've already moved. Good squad depth but quite likely not starters. I'd be happy to sign Merino but it'd be a benefit, not a transformation.
The "Salibas" might be a broader category. Fellas like Wharton who are already overpriced, or random tyros I just wouldn't know of, or Nwaneri. None of them would be highly likely to help us win the title in 2025.
My understanding is Barca would be willing to let FDJ go for the right price, however FDj is not to keen to move. Maybe late in the window he 'might' become available.
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Cannon Frenkie De Jong will not leave Barcelona looool. Might become available yeah right, Barca will sell any day of the week but nobody will touch him, and more then that, he will NEVER leave.
First, he has been injured all his life. He misses on average 110 days per year with injuries . But since September, he hurt his ankle 3 times and they don't know how to fix it. The last article about it was that he will miss the start of the season and that Barcelona are "concerned" & "the big fear is that it could end up being a chronic problem."
But it's about the stupid salary that he has. And I mean stupid, he is the best paid player in europe, 750k base salary per week he has, yeah nah. He is not worth it, not even close. He will run his contract down, as he will never earn 25% of that EVER again in his life. He will milk them dry and then leave. fuck yeah, fuck Barca.
daredevil Sure, but it can stop the fanbase from using it as a stick to beat management with.
Thing is yes there are players who are available, such as the 5 players from us who we know. And there are players who are completely unavailable like Saka and Odegaard etc.
But there are others who have not been made available who could become available if a big enough offer to the club came in. Naming those players is a bit more difficult than saying who can we buy who according to reports on who is available.
Sane linked again today
We have Party, Jorginho and Rice who can all do it to a pretty good level. When people say it’s a quality or skill we don’t have, they mean we don’t have someone who’s world class in that role.
Finding someone world class or potentially world class in that role is problematic for the same reasons finding a centre forward is problematic, because it’s an extremely demanding position.
Personally I think the solution is Rice as a 6. The issues with it earlier in the season was that we had Kai as an 8 who contributed nothing to buildup. If you have Rice as a 6 and Ode and David Silva as 8s, we’re probably not going to have a big problem.
Don't think we'll get the best from Rice or our midfield if he operates as a 6.
Need him to have a partner (Ode as a 10), or to roam as the 8.
During our most dominant form last season we had Rice as an 8. I don't think Arteta will revert him back to a 6 unless we've got injury problems.
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We might even see Rice and Merino as a double pivot so that neither one is responsible for setting the tempo and they'll have a partner to help the build up. It'll put more pressure on Odegaard further ahead but he's got the overall talent to make it work.
I also don't think Merino will walk straight into the side, the spot is for Partey and Jorginho to lose.
Dom During our most dominant form last season we had Rice as an 8.
This isn't really true, though.
(5 game sliding window, by the way)
We started playing Rice further forward starting at gameweek 26 against Newcastle. As you can see, you can't really say that we turned anything around at that point. If anything, things turned around in a negative way. We simply started playing better when Odegaard started playing better. This happened to be confounded by some finishing variance stuff which has led to some bad takes about several players, in my opinion.
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Interesting thing here at the end where Arteta confirms on the record that it seems likely that we're not going to make any really big signing this summer. I've been wondering when the bill was finally going to come due. Seems like it's this summer.
I guess Jamal "The Croydon DeBruyne" Musiala will have to wait for next year.
I didn't expect another 100m signing. That would be unrealistic at this point like he said. His responses before were coy. We must be under pressure to sell our dead wood before we can sign anymore players. We've spent a bit in the last 2 years
given how obsessed arteta is with buying more defensive players when that is already our biggest strength, its puzzling he wont just spend big money on a true DM. having a dedicated deep midfielder to just defend and free up the front 5 seems like a no brainer at this point. he obviously sees what rodri does for citeh, puzzling he wont try and replicate that here