QuincyAbeyie

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.

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.

HomeSteak I am sure playing time affects his wages though. Atleast i hope it does or Barca are real big fools!

Cannon "base salary of 720.000", is what you can find online about him. But wages are not public info, so who knows..

Sane linked again today

Mirth

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.

goon David Silva is retired a year ago Goon, your plan has fallen at the first hurdle.

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.

Dom I hope not. If we move him we need an 8 anyway. Just get a good 6.

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.

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

Seems highly likely we bring in some medium to big fish later in the window, no matter what Arteta says.

He was saying he wanted to keep Smith Rowe a week ago, the man's rehearsing his lines carefully. This window's been built with the selling campaign up front. I'm sure we want to sort out a move for Nketiah before we show our funds.

mdgoonah41 this DM you describe at this level is a rarity. Rodri is the best player I’ve seen since Busquets.

If there really isn't an elite 6 out there this summer—and it does seem there isn't—then adding a "Trossard" (could be Merino) to the Ethan Nwaneri Project™ and kicking the regista-DLP-conductor-pivot-destroyer can down the road looks like the solid play for the present and future of our midfield.

Also seeing plenty of Arsenal buzz about 22 year old Ezequiel Fernandez, who can apparently play a long pass and likes to play left 8. No idea what his level is.

Ship out Partey please.