Declan Rice

Wanting him as an alternative to Casemiro I could understand, even though he obviously wouldn't come here to play that role nor would we pay the money for him to do so.

But the people who think he's what we need alongside Casemiro are actually insane. I don't know how you can look at a midfield that is screaming out for an upgrade in technical ability, passing ability and press resistance, then think "Declan Rice is the guy".

Some of you would happily cheer us on signing a player for massive money who would still leave us wondering why we aren't able to play possession football as well as other sides. Just because a player is good (which Rice is) doesn't mean we should have any interest whatsoever in him for our team. Thankfully we haven't actually been linked with him any time recently.

In terms of what we actually need, the links to FDJ should give you a signpost. As should a look at Casemiro's previous successful midfield partners, Modric and Kroos.

Last line sums it up.
 
We just spent 70 million on a 30 year old. Rice is 24 years old in his prime. Enzo Fernandez just went to chelsea for 100 million and was coming from a weaker league. People are going nuts over Moises Caicedo, who's performance against us wasn't any better than Rice's domination on sunday and no one would have any qualms if the club forked out 80 million on him, because he's got an exotic name which proves my point

And we have no viable no 9s and we have Casemiro who plays Rice position? I'm all for signing Rice but he isn't a priority type of player we need where we can afford to pay 100m for him in my opinion.
We need an 8 who can play along side Casemiro and help us dominate the ball and a backup for Casemiro, don't think we want to pay 100m for Casemiro backup.

As for Caicedo, I'm sure people are more thinking of him as an 8, but I haven't seen him play enough to give an opinion on him being able to help us dominate the ball and create. Essentially we need an Eriksen upgrade in the 11 who can also get about the pitch and handle the physicality of the play

A cheaper option as the backup 6 makes more sense. If there is budget to get Rice in and do the rest though I am all for it
 
We just spent 70 million on a 30 year old. Rice is 24 years old in his prime. Enzo Fernandez just went to chelsea for 100 million and was coming from a weaker league. People are going nuts over Moises Caicedo, who's performance against us wasn't any better than Rice's domination on sunday and no one would have any qualms if the club forked out 80 million on him, because he's got an exotic name which proves my point
I'd have mega qualms if we forked out 80m on Caicedo imagining he could opetate as an 8. Enzo Fernandez can operate as an 8. Yet even he was ridiculously over priced because he had only been signed in January and had to be bought out of a 5 year contract.
Frankly as a 6 if you don't have Casemiro's Level of success you have zero business being priced higher than Man City paid for Rodri.(£63m) Which given inflation is about equivalent to the £35m Bayern paid for Javi Martinez before he helped win them a treble. That is why the 100m west ham think they deserve for Rice is laughable. Its doubtful anyone will pay it. They'd rather wait till he has a year left and get him for a third less.
 
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I am sometimes accused of being Anglophobe simply because I find it silly spending 80m on a championship level CB whose only redeeming quality is being English. However I would want Declan Rice and here is the reasons why

a- Rice tops the league in terms of interceptions and is second in terms of distance covered. That's what a DM does
b- He is a leader. At 24 he's already captain of West Ham
c- He has 1 contract left on his contract
d- He is still 24 years old so the best years are ahead of him
e- At 6ft1 he's got the frame to play in that role and had proven that he is not afraid in getting stuck in the most physical position into the most physical league in Europe
f- his accurate passes per 90 (49), trial behind the likes of Rodri but is very close to that of Tielemans (50.1) and MacAllister (49.6)

Casemiro won't last forever. Legs are the first to go and the way he approach football, it will be a gruesome end of career with many many yellow and red cards. We need someone to step in first as cover/competition and then as successor.
That is one part of what a DM does.
 
In terms of what we actually need, the links to FDJ should give you a signpost. As should a look at Casemiro's previous successful midfield partners, Modric and Kroos.

Yep, you could do with a more technical player next to Casemiro. Pairing Casemiro with another highly defensive-minded player like Rice could be counterproductive.

As a Chelsea fan I would absolutely take Rice. We already have Enzo who's got a good passing range and technical ability on the ball but we could use a proper DM anchor to play alongside him and complement Enzo's qualities. Sadly I don't think we'll get him though.
 
Wanting him as an alternative to Casemiro I could understand, even though he obviously wouldn't come here to play that role nor would we pay the money for him to do so.

But the people who think he's what we need alongside Casemiro are actually insane. I don't know how you can look at a midfield that is screaming out for an upgrade in technical ability, passing ability and press resistance, then think "Declan Rice is the guy".

Some of you would happily cheer us on signing a player for massive money who would still leave us wondering why we aren't able to play possession football as well as other sides. Just because a player is good (which Rice is) doesn't mean we should have any interest whatsoever in him for our team. Thankfully we haven't actually been linked with him any time recently.

In terms of what we actually need, the links to FDJ should give you a signpost. As should a look at Casemiro's previous successful midfield partners, Modric and Kroos.

Very few players in the PL are more press resistant than Declan Rice. He hardly ever losses the ball.
 
He's had a poor season, West Ham have one of the lowest possessions over the season in the league. Brighton have one of the highest but typical British football thinking goes for the physical, bullish, apparently leader like player rather than the ones playing better football.

Brighton would be half the team they are without physical bullish Caicedo playing in their midfield.
 
Yep, you could do with a more technical player next to Casemiro. Pairing Casemiro with another highly defensive-minded player like Rice could be counterproductive.

As a Chelsea fan I would absolutely take Rice. We already have Enzo who's got a good passing range and technical ability on the ball but we could use a proper DM anchor to play alongside him and complement Enzo's qualities. Sadly I don't think we'll get him though.
Ironically you might be the one team willing to spend the 100m west ham desire. After a mega fore sale of unwanted players of course.
 
My dream midfield before casemiro was rice & de jong. to me that had the right balance & age. I have a thing for 3rd cb cdms but i doubt its what ten hag wants because he uses inverted fbs as his 3rd cb cdms aswell.
 
Very few players in the PL are more press resistant than Declan Rice. He hardly ever losses the ball.

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Not that you should need stats to tell you Rice isn't the FDJ/Kroos profile midfielder we're talking about.
 
My dream midfield before casemiro was rice & de jong. to me that had the right balance & age. I have a thing for 3rd cb cdms but i doubt its what ten hag wants because he uses inverted fbs as his 3rd cb cdms aswell.
I think its a personnel thing. If he had 2 fullbacks he could invert he'd ptobsly usea 3rd center back DM like he did with De jong at ajax a lot. Operating almost like a Libero
 
I think its a personnel thing. If he had 2 fullbacks he could invert he'd ptobsly usea 3rd center back DM like he did with De jong at ajax a lot. Operating almost like a Libero
Thats what i wanted rice to play like. I love how he eats up nearly all attacks for england but i think people dont rate his good passing that can be improved by a possesion based coach because he doesnt play that way for england even though he plays a totally different game for west ham. Rice as a libero & de jong as a roaming playmaker is what i wanted.
 
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Not that you should need stats to tell you Rice isn't the FDJ/Kroos profile midfielder we're talking about.
Rice dribbles out of pressure more than he makes a pass out of pressure.
 
Rice dribbles out of pressure more than he makes a pass out of pressure.

So do many players for example FDJ, you need to be able to do both.
He will have less chances to dribble to do this with a team that will have more of the ball and play less on transition
 
Young. British. A leader. Fergie would have done everything to sign him.

Agreed, although we seem to have evolved from the Fergie model; perhaps with good reason in that no manager can bring out the best in British Isles players as Fergie could.
 
So do many players for example FDJ, you need to be able to do both
I wouldnt play rice like i would de jong or kroos. Rice's passing is good not great & i believe it can improve under a more possesion based manager than moyes. His passes are around the 75% mark avg when looking at fbref & i think it can get to the 80-5% with a better team & coach. But ultimately i wanted rice to be the midfield destroyer/interceptor, which is also something many midfielders no 8 dont have the ability to do themselves.
 
I wouldnt play rice like i would de jong or kroos. Rice's passing is good not great & i believe it can improve under a more possesion based manager than moyes. His passes are around the 75% mark avg when looking at fbref & i think it can get to the 80-5% with a better team & coach. But ultimately i wanted rice to be the midfield destroyer/interceptor, which is also something many midfielders no 8 dont have the ability to do themselves.

Its fair but we have Casemiro, I have no issue with Rice but for the money he would cost, he doesn't seem to make sense as a signing with what we already have.
I think Rice would be a good player in the role you describe, but I think we need a different profile to compliment Casemiro
 
I really, really hope Arse or Liverpool blow their load on him. Usually in these situations, I would just want the player to feck off to Spain or something. With this lad, I'm fairly confident he is going to be a disappointment for whatever team decides to sign him.
 
I really, really hope Arse or Liverpool blow their load on him. Usually in these situations, I would just want the player to feck off to Spain or something. With this lad, I'm fairly confident he is going to be a disappointment for whatever team decides to sign him.

You don't think he would do well in the role Xhaka is playing right now? Or as an option when Partey is injured playing with Jorginho?
 
You don't think he would do well in the role Xhaka is playing right now? Or as an option when Partey is injured playing with Jorginho?

I think he would be worse than both of those options and so would massively fail to justify the outlay of, what, at least £80mill? Arsenal are going to regress next year in my opinion and Rice does very little to move them forward - I'd be very happy if the Arsenal blew their load on him, yep.
 
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Not that you should need stats to tell you Rice isn't the FDJ/Kroos profile midfielder we're talking about.

But these are numbers highly dependent on the team. A player in a team with a higher completion rate and higher xg will look much better.

A player like Rodri increased his completion rate by three percent when he moved from A Madrid to Man City. You can also be sure that his xg per sequence improved significantly.

The average completion rate of the City players are 87 %. At WHU the average completion rate is 75 %. You dont think this is relevant?
 
I think he would be worse than both of those options and so would massively fail to justify the outlay of, what, at least £80mill? Arsenal are going to regress next year in my opinion and Rice does very little to move them forward - I'd be very happy if the Arsenal blew their load on him, yep.

Hmmm, not sure I agree but fair enough
 
But these are numbers highly dependent on the team. A player in a team with a higher completion rate and higher xg will look much better.

A player like Rodri increased his completion rate by three percent when he moved from A Madrid to Man City. You can also be sure that his xg per sequence improved significantly.

I think the xG per sequence under pressure is what the OP was getting at
 
Hmmm, not sure I agree but fair enough

Ara, sure football is all opinions. He'll probably win a Balon D'Or now. I reckon he is mediocre and won't justify the price tag though and am confident enough in that assertion to have a rival spunk their load on him. God knows I've been wrong enough times though - really thought Reo-Coker was going to sort our midfield out completely at one stage...
 
Ara, sure football is all opinions. He'll probably win a Balon D'Or now. I reckon he is mediocre and won't justify the price tag though and am confident enough in that assertion to have a rival spunk their load on him. God knows I've been wrong enough times though - really thought Reo-Coker was going to sort our midfield out completely at one stage...

Haha, indeed opinions.
I don't think he is a top-level player on the ball, but he is decent and has some good qualities about him. I've warmed to him over the past season, I think he can offer more robustness to the Arsenal midfield (they already create a lot) and need to improve defensively if they want to kick on. They can already dominate and control games, they are not defensively robust when they have a few players out and that has cost them the title this season.

For United I think hes the wrong profile because we can't dominate/control games, we need players who can help us with that first.
 
Ironically you might be the one team willing to spend the 100m west ham desire. After a mega fore sale of unwanted players of course.

If Chelsea were willing to spend £100m on Rice he would have been a Chelsea player years ago. We’ve wanted to sign him since 2019. If West Ham are still insisting on that valuation, I suspect he will remain at that club next season again.
 
Maybe. But same point. Put Henderson or Rodri at WHU and it would decrease their numbers significantly.

To be lower than McTominay or JWP? I don't think so
 
Thats what i wanted rice to play like. I love how he eats up nearly all attacks for england but i think people dont rate his good passing that can be improved by a possesion based coach because he doesnt play that way for england even though he plays a totally different game for west ham. Rice as a libero & de jong as a roaming playmaker is what i wanted.
it would be the other way round though. Rice would be the box to box pressser and de jong the libero who drops in between the CBS and roams every where. Its how ETH played Lasse Schone with De jong
 
He's a fantastic player but it's just not happening, is it? West Ham have set their stall out for years. It's top money for him. We can't deploy that type of money when a striker is on the agenda. I personally think lots of the big clubs have wanted him but nobody has decided to reach their asking price, because it probably is over the top.

I think he's better when he's not playing a purely defensive role. He has done that for West Ham but I think it's not great because his passing range is not up there. He also becomes really defensive, almost between the centre backs. Seems to waste all his athletic and ball carrying skills in such a role. He can get back in and defend from any role because he's got the engine to do it.
 
To be lower than McTominay or JWP? I don't think so

Would you not expect JWPs number to be quite good? Or do they make sure to only include open play?

(McT might not be very good, but he has played in a team alot better than WHU for a few years.)
 
Best thing is no one pays up for him and we get a run at him in Jan or for free next summer
 
Would you not expect JWPs number to be quite good? Or do they make sure to only include open play?

(McT might not be very good, but he has played in a team alot better than WHU for a few years.)

No, why would I expect that? Ah set pieces, fair enough. Even then JWP numbers are not quite good are they... see for instance Romeu's numbers in the same team.