Good luck finding the next Rodri. Rice is definitely not the same type of DM like Rodri, Busquets or Xabi Alonso who played under Pep's system before.
Declan Rice
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Why is it irrelevant? He’s become 1 of the most important players in a title challenging team, and he’s now starring in the Champions League rather than the Europa League. In fact his first half of the season performances would have him in the running for POTY. So how is that not taking his performances up a level?
Well what seasons was he being discussed as potential POTY at West Ham?
Depends on the system. I think Rice’s ability to dictate play is underrated, but for arguments sake, let’s say it’s as mediocre as some in this thread are making out.
Arsenal have Raya as statistically the most aggressive keeper in terms of average position on the pitch. Saliba is a slick ball-playing CB. Gabriel can drive with the ball. Zinchenko and White are both very comfortable inverting. Odegaard is dropping deeper. Saka and Martinelli constantly make themselves available for an out ball. And Jesus plays as a false nine.
Rice doesn’t need to be 10/10 at dictating play in our system. All of our players are comfortable on the ball, so we’re not reliant upon one player with elite ball progression skills. The same was true of Casemiro at Madrid.
Of course, if you have Rodri, Modric, Scholes, Piri, Busquets (and Xavi and Iniesta, for that matter) you play to their strengths. But there is more than one way of being a top-class number 6.
That is 100% true, very rare. I think we have not put enough value in looking for that type of player tbh, and I would spend huge on them.
Fair enough but you overall are not that good. In a season that's poor, though very competitive, you are one of the top. If City were having a good season you wouldn't be a competitor.
If you want to be a top team you need to be better.
Just like most of the coaches out there, Arteta needs to make do with the players and resource on his hand, adjust his tactics, and play to their strength. Emery is also doing a great job in Villa to make them competitive with his resource as well. It would be nice to have the next Rodri, Messi, Iniesta, Xavi in the team of course.
My point isn’t about how good Arsenal are as a team. It’s about our system. Our recruitment and style of play means that we got several options for progressing the ball through the thirds.
But if that still sounds too much like praising Arsenal for you to be comfortable, feel free to use the other example I cited, Real Madrid. Casimero wasn’t elite at dictating play. Yet he was clearly world-class lynchpin in one of the greatest midfield trios the world has ever seen.
I can't imagine you would. Only the cultists here, of which there are only a few it seems, actually believe we got our transfer targets right this summer. Last summer, the one massive swing and a miss was Antony, but most would agree that the vast majority of the 400m+ we spent the last two summers were wasted.
He is much more assured on the ball than I thought he was. He hardly loses possession and his progressive passing seems to be getting better all the time. Those driving runs from midfield are also becoming quite regular. Arteta seems to be doing brilliantly with developing the offensive side of his game, really can't wait til we have Partey back to see them together (hopefully not with Partey inverting into RB).
Really? Are 'his' and "Arsenal" interchangeable words? Come on.....
Yet again. Correct. 10000% irrelevant to my argument.
Have you followed this thread from start to finsh? Or are you just here now to defend and Arsenal player who was insanely expensive and doing well for your side?
Because the folks I'm talking about here made these claims much earlier, repeatedly.
Becsuse you are an Arsenal fan who happens to like your 100m signing who is doing well who happens to be called Declan Rice. Whilst they are actual Declan Rice fans from his West Ham days. Who made the said comments way before y'all registered official interest in the player. Let alone showed any interest in ever letting Xhaka go nor replacing him with Havertz in his incarnation as a Chelsea striker.....
A Mainoo Rice Fernandes trio is up there with any other midfield in the world.
Couldn't be further from the truth that he wouldn't solve any of our problems.
Couldn't be further from the truth that he wouldn't solve any of our problems.
Yup we made a mistake in hindsight signing Casemiro instead of Rice. Rice would have sorted the midfield for years. He’s a Fergie signing. It made too much sense.
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Other than Rice, I also remember Kane, Bellingham are also Fergie's signing.
The fact that he moved this summer and we didn't get him but Arsenal did is unforgivable.
Also, ETH has to explain at some point why he went and wasted so much of our budget on Mount.
Also, ETH has to explain at some point why he went and wasted so much of our budget on Mount.
Agree with you.
Ah, it was all a misunderstanding
It was a genuine question. You kept saying “his fans”, I didnt get who that was. It’s Declan Rice, he’s not a Messi or Ronaldo who legitimately have fans that follow them from club to club. That’s why I thought you might mean Arsenal fans seeing as we’ve clearly taken to him.
Finding the vaguest of similarities does not make them similar. "They both dictate play". Ok, but you aren't telling us much. Never seen a single soul say compare Rodri to Makelele.
Its alright. It happens
Pure hindsight talk. No one can claim they knew Mainoo would be this good this early in senior ball by the time Rice was on the market
The same people who were not happy with us signing a non midfield controller like Casemiro would have been even more unhappy with a Rice he would have cost alnost twice the fee. Before the advent of Mainoo....
He wasn't because he was at West Ham. Duh. Their best finish was 7th. And he was on the shortlist or whatever it is when West Ham finished 7th iirc
Makelele had a lot more in common with Rice than Rodri
Not really, rice simply isn't that player who dictates in anyway.
Neither was Makelele
He did, he was the highest passer in the team, kept the team ticking and created a lot of space.
Ah.
If that’s your definition of dictating play, that applies to Rice as well. I think only Gabriel has more passes than him and he creates a lot of space.
Think you are right, he finished high up on Football Writers award, not on PFA Player of the Year.
Anyway, it's hard to judge if a stand out player from a lesser team has taken his game up to another level when he joins a bigger team. You could argue yeah, he's performing as well as he done at West Ham, that's true.
What you can't argue is that his performances are now being showcased at a higher level, at the top of the table & in the Champions League, and he's certainly looked like he belongs there at the very least.
With us he was.
Chris Coleman set up man marking tactics on him due to his influence in possesion.
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/2370566/coleman-reveals-masterplan
This is kind of revealing of english football at the time, in a bad way, but i digress. What Makelele did for you isn't particularly different than what Rice did for West Ham or is doing for Arsenal now. There is a difference between moving the ball from point A to point B a lot and dictating play
It’s interesting that your team, in a country famous for its love of tempo-controlling midfielders, essentially swapped Makelele for Beckham. I’ve always wondered how much more the Galaticos would have won if the they hadn’t swapped their “engine” for a “another layer of gold paint” as Zidane so beautifully put it.
Marketing was the driving force at the time and they had learnt their lesson.
If this is the case then 105m was not overpay. That is the going rate for those players these days.
It wasn't actually much of an issue because Beckham ran his socks off anyways and Guti actually did too that season. The problem was the lack of bench options combined with the advanced age of most of the galacticos
We would have been fine had Zidane, Figo and co. been 2-3 years younger, or with a bench of actual useful players instead of the "Pavones"
Btw, in Spain, Makelele was basically Kante
If you had the money for it, then sure, it wasn't an overpay. Ultimately I'd be surprised if you guys aren't very happy with this signing
Expectations are always going to be impossibly high when you pay this sort of money. But I think you'll be hard pressed to find an Arsenal fan who doesn't feel he is worth every penny, and then some. I was sceptical at first because of the fee and didn't expect he'd settle in so seamlessly. But you can definitely see why Arteta made him his primary target and chased him around all those months. And the best part is, he's just getting started and is only 24.
Would have my team pay 200m for him tomorrow. A marvel of a player
Annoys me to all ends that we didn’t sign him. He’s the sort of player Fergie would’ve had signed up years ago.
Instructed to shield the back 4 even more than usual for good reasons. Zinchenko and our front 3 did everything they could to gift Liverpool chances.
Rice and Saliba were absolute rocks. Got called "useless" by some genius though
Rice and Saliba were absolute rocks. Got called "useless" by some genius though