I know a lot of it is just paper speculation, but 1 thing i don't like are stories that seem to come out from Arsenal's end saying they have confidence / growing confidence that they are able to get a player, only to suddenly be bemused by the demands or asking price of the selling club / player.
Lets get this right, West Ham don't want to lose Rice, the same way Brighton don't want to lose Caceido. So they are perfectly within their rights to say if you want him, then pony up.
Now, Rice is slightly different, in that he has 1+1 year left on his contract, been with them for years and is very well thought of at the club. For these reasons they might be a little bit more reasonable in their demands, especially if Rice has difficult conversations and spells things out to them, but they are not going to massively shift in valuation and what they will perceive as giving him away.
You would think a total package of between £80M-£100M would be fair for all parties, but lets see how accommodating West Ham will be for him. I have a fear they will end up pricing us out, as we've seen this played out in this scenario before. And people will always say it's posturing, they will accept much less etc, but while there are clubs like Chelsea, City, Newcastle etc who have deep pockets, they always have hope that someone comes closer to their valuation.