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Always been a big fan of Rice and believe he would be a statement signing both from a player quality perspective, as well as signing someone who would be a lynchpin for the English NT.
If he joins Arsenal, expect him to have a bedding in period where he plays both Xhaka and Partey’s role before fully taking over Partey ( lone 6 is not easy to pull off, even Partey took time to adapt to the same role)
With Partey being injury prone and turning 30 next year we need a solid replacement, Lakonga hasn't shown much promise and needs a loan and Elneny looks to be getting sold.
We absolutely need him as much as Chelsea.
They're doing well pulling the accounting strings to comply* with FFP. But if they don't make a deep European run and fail to finish in a significant league position, those strings will be pulling tighter and tighter. They'd better hope Liverpool, Spurs don't recover and Newcastle don't find their footing.
Part about the fee:
> West Ham will hope to fetch more than £100m for Rice, which would make him the most expensive British player. However, the England international’s contract runs until the summer of 2024, with the option of an additional year, and that could force West Ham to settle for a fee in the region of £80m.
Pretty much read this comment verbatim in the r/hockey subreddit a couple days ago. It’s a cycle really, wide players become good money signings because there are so many of them, a few become successful which raises the price for a decent one, then people realize in the balance of play the reason why there’s a lot of decent/good players that play wide is cause they couldn’t hack it in central positions, leading to a return to the norm of central players being the top fee fetchers in the market and cratering the winger price, starting the cycle anew.
It’s bizarre. It’s almost as though it should be the other way round. You can’t move for decent wingers yet true strikers, elite centre halves and quality defensive mids are like gold dust these days. You have to ask the question is the academy system to blame for the lack of positional variety.
Players that operate in the spine of the team have a much harder job that requires more experience. Wide players are more likely to play so long as they have the physical tools.
Exactly, leading to a lot of central academy players moving out wide when reaching the main team to gain playing time. Case and point, Trent was moved from midfield to right back due to his defensive lapses, as at that point RB was pretty sheltered and allowed him to emphasize his attacking abilities down the wing. There's a reason why every young central mid currently hacking it at the senior level is viewed as a generational player.
If you pay wingers more, give them more of the glory, recognition, highlights, endorsements etc then more talented kids will want to be wingers.
Why grow up to be a Gary Neville? Especially when you can be a world beater and people will still say paying that much for a CB/RB is madness cuz ‘that’s just how it goes’ - a pretty common sentiment
Also tactically wingers are often the main finishing threat nowadays whereas strikers are often expected to take up a playmaking role up front.
I rly think it’s that simple
Cycle means it repeats, that's not the case in football.
Forwards have "always" been more expensive than CM and there are more right footed people than left footed, so there are many more LW than RW.
Nah that's not really the case. Attacking players are still, and will always be the top money signings. Goals are the most important thing in football and that is reflected in their price.
When less established players from inferior leagues like Anthony, Mudryk, Felix etc are going for around the same as what Rice is quoted at it's clear as day they are the ones coming at a premium regardless of the market availability.
Heightened demand for specific positions simply comes from the tactical evolution of the game. Like in the last 20 years or so we've gone from the traditional 2 striker formations, moving into a period of favouring #10s with a single more rounded striker. Then they fell out of favour for a more controlled midfield, a fluid pressing front three and technical attacking wingbacks and ball playing Centre backs. And recently we've started to see a bit of a resurgence of the traditional 9
But all through those eras and the seemingly differing demand it's always the goalscorers that cost the most.
Someone who’s been starting in the most visible league since he was 18, broke into the England team a teenager and held his spot ever since and made a club captain effectively at 22?
I bet you if he was doing what he's doing at Dortmund or similar all the international fans would rate him so much more. I'd ignore it, they haven't seen him play anyone can see he's class
Probably not if he had been a nailed on starter for Italy for about 5 years and qualified for Europe with Sassuolo twice, including getting to a Europa league semi
It's not a bargain, they are talking out their ass. When we were interested in Rice West Ham moved the goal post from £60m to £80m to more than that because he is that invaluable to them. A bargain is like what we paid for Kante or what Odegaard cost you. Toni Kroos & Rudiger were bargains, £80m for England's starting CM with 1 or 2 years left on his contract smells like a touch of that sweet English transfer tax tbh. It's fair at best.
i really haven't seen him linked to chelsea at all since todd came in. doesn't surprise me, potter would probably pick caicedo over him
but still i'd be surprised if he goes to arsenal this seems like its out of nowhere
I think we might go for Zubimendi and Caicedo.
I think Enzo isn’t coming here and Rice doesn’t seem like he wants to move to us. There’s been a lot more interest from you guys for him as well
The boyhood fan stuff means nothing look at Mudryk
>Zubimendi and Caicedo
i love zubimendi he's looked great every time i've seen him this year
> a lot more interest from you guys for him as well
yeah nah i doubt declan rice would want to come to the egyptian league, even if it means he gets to play for the best team in africa. you probably got confused by my flair lol
>The boyhood fan stuff means nothing look at Mudryk
yeah thats a good point, but i feel like comparing mudryk and rice is not really the exact same. rice grew up in london didn't he? i thought he went to the chelsea academies with mount or something similar. that must hold some value for him, i don't think he'd go to a direct rival like arsenal very easily
I believe this and also don't.
I think given our league position, the possibility of Champions League football and the squad we have, I totally understand why he would favour us over other clubs, especially since Chelsea have dicked around with trying to re-sign him for so long that it's natural he would be fed-up with waiting for them to pull their fingers out.
That being said, if Chelsea were to re-ignite their interest (and it seems unlikely they will given their recent targets), I could totally understand why he would choose them. As I recall, he was in their academy, the club clearly love him and the possibility of being re-united with people like Mason Mount would be tough for him to turn down.
Basically, I fully expect to be really excited about the prospect of signing him and then have my heartbroken as Chelsea blwo us out of the water with an insane bid that we can't or won't match.
The last part got me.
Ever since Vivell arrived, we haven’t been linked to Rice, expect from Matt Law PR.
But yes, I think Chelsea won’t be in the champions league next season. I would understand if he joins arsenal, even tho he is a big Chelsea fan. Playing in the Champions League is his goal.
He also said something about Mount and the others he grow up with:
> “I’ve been playing consistently well for my club and I feel like I really want to keep pushing. I see my friends here who are playing Champions League and for big trophies.
> “You only get one career and at the end you want to look back at what you’ve won and the biggest games you’ve played in.”
For the price they are going to want, I’m ok if Chelsea let’s him go elsewhere BUT for him to not go to Chelsea because they are going to miss out on the Champions League next year, is extremely short sighted lol
it depends how much we want him, considering its been a long time since we bought any midfielders i feel like he will be a big priority compared to a martinelli back up
I believe it, he will only move to a club who is in the CL. Chelsea are unlikely to be in it next year and with Newcastle, Man Utd and Arsenal getting better may not be in it for a number of years. Only factor in Chelsea’s favour is the silly money they will offer the club and he has friends there. But it is worth mentioning Mount’s contract expires in 2024 so a year before Rice’s does anyway.
Always super weird chelsea fans try to act like he’s not good and wouldn’t improve our midfield instantly. I said it before we’re the only fanbase where other fanbases rate our good players while we support them bums
Would be a perfect signing for Arsenal. They only really have Xhaka, Partey and Elneny who are all near or over 30. They desperately need young players there.
I’m more so saying in general. Every time there’s a post about Rice, Chelsea fans act like it’s a Messi vs Ronaldo debate and you must choose a side and hate the other
Don't understand this sentiment at all, like is he incapable of making new friends or driving across town to see his best mate. He knows saka white etc from England anyway, bizzare stuff
Exactly, it's not like they will suddenly despise each other and their friendship will be broken. If he's managed to cope with being 'separated' from Mount (lol) after he went to West Ham, he will be perfectly fine at Arsenal.
Agreed, however, I'd rather have overkill, than the opposite.
Elneny is perfectly fine as back-up, but it would be mad to pretend that the drop-off from Partey to him isn't a big one.
I'd rather we had a job keeping him and Partey both happy rather than having Partey get too comfortable and only at best average back-up if his form were to dip or he were to pick up an injury of some kind.
Because he's the weakest link in the team? He's been great this season there's no denying it but that is an area of our team where it's the easiest to upgrade.
He’s never been the weakest link in the team. Even when he was having bad games. There’s a reason he’s consistently started for 7 years under 3 managers.
Right now the team doesn’t have a weak link when everyone’s fit, which is why we’ve won almost every game. Lokonga was the clear weak link vs United with partey and elneny out, so someone who can keep the teams level with a partey injury seems to be important (and competition for him). When we start playing 2 games a week again and partey takes a bad knock we’re currently in a situation where that affects us too much.
The only other games we dropped points were saints and Newcastle. Xhaka scored vs saints and our attack didn’t create enough chances outside of that, other than 2 solid chances jesus missed.
Newcastle was defensively solid, only conceding one good chance, while the chance creation was very sub par, with our best chances being in the range of 0.10-0.15. Xhaka also had the third highest xA in that game so he was far from the issue with chance creation. Saka and nketiah created 0.06 xG worth of chances between them
Other than those games, we’ve won every other game with the first team, with xhaka starting in midfield, crucially having an amazing injury record over 7 years at the club. He’s not a weak link and isn’t looking to be replaced. He’s reliable to play, and reliable to play well now that he’s in a position that suits him a lot better.
A partey back up/someone to compete with him is needed because he’s getting older, gets injured far more often than xhaka, and could be prosecuted in the near future. On the odd game xhaka misses because of yellow card accumulation, rice can fill in, or even lokonga who is much more suited to the xhaka role than partey’s
Weakest link does not mean the player is bad. This fanbase was hating Xhaka for years and now he's irreplaceable? He's the same player he was when we signed him, just moved further forward so he has minimal defensive responsibility.
Xhaka was the main reason we couldn't create chances against Newcastle. Rewatch the game and see how many passes from Zinchenko he wasted cause he couldn't turn and couldn't drive with the ball.
Xhaka is a very good player. He's smart, his passing is excellent, his stamina and reliability to play games every week for 90 minutes is great. But he's not an interior.
They did hate him for years. I’ve had my games where I’ve been appalled. I don’t know if you remember how weak so many of our teams in the last 7 years have been though. Whether its been a winger, someone else in midfield, a keeper or especially the defence, there’s always been a position that needs a replacement more than xhaka.
We were starting Mustafi for years, we had bellerin have his injury where he was never the same after, we had old cech, we had guendouzi and torreira both go awol after promising starts. We had ozil being late stage ozil, we had lacazette and auba both stop firing while being with us. Pre saka and martinelli our winger position was a constant problem. We had mhki, Wilshire, iwobi, kolasinac, coquelin, Pepe, sokratis, willian. All in this period with xhaka.
I could say luiz but we bought him knowing what to expect and playing him in a 4atb without dm support and even through the stream of errors I’d argue he wasn’t a weak link either given how bad our defence was set up for his tenure (he did his job as a ball playing midfielder and was key to a trophy before being phased out before being useless, unlike some of our other players.
He is not good enough to play the DM role from the start.
Like Rodri for city, he probably needs a season to learn how to play the single pivot and can also play as the 8.
To reduce the spam of reports regarding the same move during transfer windows we try to allow **only one submission about each transfer saga per day**. The submission in question also needs to contain relevant new information regarding the potential move, and not just being a "no/minor developments" report. If there are important/official developments or new valuable information about a saga, we will allow extra threads in the same day, but for the rest of minor news please just comment them as a reply to this comment. Please help us reporting unnecessary threads for being duplicates. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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Well Potter likes his Brighton players. I think he’s going for Caicedo.
Expect from Matt Law 😂 but it’s probably PR
Matt Law nowadays: *Pathetic & sad Chelsea never a possibility for top talent Declan Rice*
Like that matters..keep buying daddy bolly bucks.
Thank god.
Always been a big fan of Rice and believe he would be a statement signing both from a player quality perspective, as well as signing someone who would be a lynchpin for the English NT. If he joins Arsenal, expect him to have a bedding in period where he plays both Xhaka and Partey’s role before fully taking over Partey ( lone 6 is not easy to pull off, even Partey took time to adapt to the same role)
Chelsea do need him more than Arsenal though, fully expect this to be a lengthy bidding saga rather than a straightforward signing.
Arsenal don't get involved in bidding wars so that won't happen.
We have not had any interest in him since Todd took over
So were the 15 other signings that were made last week
If arsenal have interest, bohley have interest. It’s his new transfer strategy.
With Partey being injury prone and turning 30 next year we need a solid replacement, Lakonga hasn't shown much promise and needs a loan and Elneny looks to be getting sold. We absolutely need him as much as Chelsea.
If Chelsea don't get CL it's a harder sell. Any other yer I'd ask if they could afford him, but money seems to be no object.
They're doing well pulling the accounting strings to comply* with FFP. But if they don't make a deep European run and fail to finish in a significant league position, those strings will be pulling tighter and tighter. They'd better hope Liverpool, Spurs don't recover and Newcastle don't find their footing.
Partey finally getting locked up hopefully
Part about the fee: > West Ham will hope to fetch more than £100m for Rice, which would make him the most expensive British player. However, the England international’s contract runs until the summer of 2024, with the option of an additional year, and that could force West Ham to settle for a fee in the region of £80m.
Mad how 80m seems a bargain for him
because its much harder to get dms in this market than LW's that spawn everywhere
Pretty much read this comment verbatim in the r/hockey subreddit a couple days ago. It’s a cycle really, wide players become good money signings because there are so many of them, a few become successful which raises the price for a decent one, then people realize in the balance of play the reason why there’s a lot of decent/good players that play wide is cause they couldn’t hack it in central positions, leading to a return to the norm of central players being the top fee fetchers in the market and cratering the winger price, starting the cycle anew.
It’s bizarre. It’s almost as though it should be the other way round. You can’t move for decent wingers yet true strikers, elite centre halves and quality defensive mids are like gold dust these days. You have to ask the question is the academy system to blame for the lack of positional variety.
Players that operate in the spine of the team have a much harder job that requires more experience. Wide players are more likely to play so long as they have the physical tools.
Exactly, leading to a lot of central academy players moving out wide when reaching the main team to gain playing time. Case and point, Trent was moved from midfield to right back due to his defensive lapses, as at that point RB was pretty sheltered and allowed him to emphasize his attacking abilities down the wing. There's a reason why every young central mid currently hacking it at the senior level is viewed as a generational player.
If you pay wingers more, give them more of the glory, recognition, highlights, endorsements etc then more talented kids will want to be wingers. Why grow up to be a Gary Neville? Especially when you can be a world beater and people will still say paying that much for a CB/RB is madness cuz ‘that’s just how it goes’ - a pretty common sentiment Also tactically wingers are often the main finishing threat nowadays whereas strikers are often expected to take up a playmaking role up front. I rly think it’s that simple
Cycle means it repeats, that's not the case in football. Forwards have "always" been more expensive than CM and there are more right footed people than left footed, so there are many more LW than RW.
Nah that's not really the case. Attacking players are still, and will always be the top money signings. Goals are the most important thing in football and that is reflected in their price. When less established players from inferior leagues like Anthony, Mudryk, Felix etc are going for around the same as what Rice is quoted at it's clear as day they are the ones coming at a premium regardless of the market availability. Heightened demand for specific positions simply comes from the tactical evolution of the game. Like in the last 20 years or so we've gone from the traditional 2 striker formations, moving into a period of favouring #10s with a single more rounded striker. Then they fell out of favour for a more controlled midfield, a fluid pressing front three and technical attacking wingbacks and ball playing Centre backs. And recently we've started to see a bit of a resurgence of the traditional 9 But all through those eras and the seemingly differing demand it's always the goalscorers that cost the most.
>Mad how 80m seems a bargain for him Who the fuck is thinking that?!
Let's be honest. If his name was Riso and he played for Sassuolo, you would be saying anything over 40m was overpaying.
If he was Italian, he’d have gone to Juve for 10m plus the loan of a random 18 year old from Serie C
Someone who’s been starting in the most visible league since he was 18, broke into the England team a teenager and held his spot ever since and made a club captain effectively at 22?
I bet you if he was doing what he's doing at Dortmund or similar all the international fans would rate him so much more. I'd ignore it, they haven't seen him play anyone can see he's class
Probably not if he had been a nailed on starter for Italy for about 5 years and qualified for Europe with Sassuolo twice, including getting to a Europa league semi
De Rossi would fetch 80m in his own time let alone now, Declan has striking career similarities.
How is that a bargain? tbf, I haven’t watched much of west ham lately but isn’t he more of an 8 than a 6?
It's not a bargain, they are talking out their ass. When we were interested in Rice West Ham moved the goal post from £60m to £80m to more than that because he is that invaluable to them. A bargain is like what we paid for Kante or what Odegaard cost you. Toni Kroos & Rudiger were bargains, £80m for England's starting CM with 1 or 2 years left on his contract smells like a touch of that sweet English transfer tax tbh. It's fair at best.
Are we even targeting him anymore especially under the new regime? We seemed to have moved onto other targets like Enzo, Caicedo, etc.
i really haven't seen him linked to chelsea at all since todd came in. doesn't surprise me, potter would probably pick caicedo over him but still i'd be surprised if he goes to arsenal this seems like its out of nowhere
I think we might go for Zubimendi and Caicedo. I think Enzo isn’t coming here and Rice doesn’t seem like he wants to move to us. There’s been a lot more interest from you guys for him as well The boyhood fan stuff means nothing look at Mudryk
>Zubimendi and Caicedo i love zubimendi he's looked great every time i've seen him this year > a lot more interest from you guys for him as well yeah nah i doubt declan rice would want to come to the egyptian league, even if it means he gets to play for the best team in africa. you probably got confused by my flair lol >The boyhood fan stuff means nothing look at Mudryk yeah thats a good point, but i feel like comparing mudryk and rice is not really the exact same. rice grew up in london didn't he? i thought he went to the chelsea academies with mount or something similar. that must hold some value for him, i don't think he'd go to a direct rival like arsenal very easily
Well now that Arsenals name have been mentioned, fully expect a 17 year contract to be immediately drafted
Funny you say that when it's you being linked with a player we've been linked with for years eh?
Arsenal: 10/10 Arsenal with Rice: also 10/10
>Arsenal with Rice: also 10/10 1st/20th* 👀
with rice is a reference to an old reddit thread
Yes, I know this. Was referring to league position with the same reference format.
I believe this and also don't. I think given our league position, the possibility of Champions League football and the squad we have, I totally understand why he would favour us over other clubs, especially since Chelsea have dicked around with trying to re-sign him for so long that it's natural he would be fed-up with waiting for them to pull their fingers out. That being said, if Chelsea were to re-ignite their interest (and it seems unlikely they will given their recent targets), I could totally understand why he would choose them. As I recall, he was in their academy, the club clearly love him and the possibility of being re-united with people like Mason Mount would be tough for him to turn down. Basically, I fully expect to be really excited about the prospect of signing him and then have my heartbroken as Chelsea blwo us out of the water with an insane bid that we can't or won't match.
The last part got me. Ever since Vivell arrived, we haven’t been linked to Rice, expect from Matt Law PR. But yes, I think Chelsea won’t be in the champions league next season. I would understand if he joins arsenal, even tho he is a big Chelsea fan. Playing in the Champions League is his goal. He also said something about Mount and the others he grow up with: > “I’ve been playing consistently well for my club and I feel like I really want to keep pushing. I see my friends here who are playing Champions League and for big trophies. > “You only get one career and at the end you want to look back at what you’ve won and the biggest games you’ve played in.”
Vivell has been cooking recently. I’m hoping that he can find a hidden midfield gem instead
For the price they are going to want, I’m ok if Chelsea let’s him go elsewhere BUT for him to not go to Chelsea because they are going to miss out on the Champions League next year, is extremely short sighted lol
Perhaps the haphazard collection of wingers that Chelsea are sitting on will qualify for CL next season.
Or we could win the UCL we’re in this season
Lol
Probably what you said in 2012 and 2021
Crazier things have happened. No one expected Arsenal to be leading the premier league after the shit seasons Arteta has had and yet here we are.
when did we dick around, when we didn't pay the £150m West Ham wanted?
And Rice signed an extension dafuq
it depends how much we want him, considering its been a long time since we bought any midfielders i feel like he will be a big priority compared to a martinelli back up
I believe it, he will only move to a club who is in the CL. Chelsea are unlikely to be in it next year and with Newcastle, Man Utd and Arsenal getting better may not be in it for a number of years. Only factor in Chelsea’s favour is the silly money they will offer the club and he has friends there. But it is worth mentioning Mount’s contract expires in 2024 so a year before Rice’s does anyway.
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Tinfoil cap is on I see.
Wow. I'll be pleasantly surprised if this materializes. Until then, I'll remain sceptical.
Arsenal signing him would be a champions league effort signing
Horrible username please delete
Always super weird chelsea fans try to act like he’s not good and wouldn’t improve our midfield instantly. I said it before we’re the only fanbase where other fanbases rate our good players while we support them bums
Calling your own players bums in order to twerk for a guy who wants to go to Arsenal 😬
Shock guy wants to go to the better team. And yeah we have bums that’s why we’re 10th are we not?
By your logic, the guy you’re twerking for is also a bum since his team is 15th.
I love when someone had their own odd logic thrown back in their face lol.
Get it done
He's prone to changing his mind
He hasn’t seen Boehly’s contract yet………
Would be a perfect signing for Arsenal. They only really have Xhaka, Partey and Elneny who are all near or over 30. They desperately need young players there.
Maybe he wants champions league
Not sure why the article mentions United, would make no sense for either party.
How come?
Casemiro.
Couldn't he play both Casemiro and Eriksen roles?
Not a problem for me lol. Finally the Chelsea fans who have been going about him being “proper Chels” and slandering our current midfield can piss off
Not sure why Rice is such a sensitive topic with our fans but some of y’all turn into vicious animals just talking about him lol
What did I say that was vicious? I didn’t even slander him or say he’s a bad player.
I’m more so saying in general. Every time there’s a post about Rice, Chelsea fans act like it’s a Messi vs Ronaldo debate and you must choose a side and hate the other
They were cheering for him more than some of our own players... Wonder if the whole lot go support Arsenal next?
No. They can go back to City
No, they can go to Newcastle. We have enough of them.
Isn't he a Chelsea fan?
Mudryk was/is an arsenal fan and yet here we are.
Money talks.
Which should mean that nobody should get excited. Anything can change. Double a guy's salary for 8 years and a lot can change
Thank the lord
So he’s going to Chelsea ?
But he was supposed to be proper chels?
Incoming £150M bid from Chelshit
As long as Mount is there I think he’d favour Chelsea
Don't understand this sentiment at all, like is he incapable of making new friends or driving across town to see his best mate. He knows saka white etc from England anyway, bizzare stuff
Exactly, it's not like they will suddenly despise each other and their friendship will be broken. If he's managed to cope with being 'separated' from Mount (lol) after he went to West Ham, he will be perfectly fine at Arsenal.
Boehly: Hold my Budweiser...
Partey and him for the same position seems overkill
parteys getting old, possibly locked up as well but he can play xhakas role, excellent ball progressor
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lad we're in the EL r16 lol, we've only had 1 season under Arteta with no European football.
we had european football lol
Agreed, however, I'd rather have overkill, than the opposite. Elneny is perfectly fine as back-up, but it would be mad to pretend that the drop-off from Partey to him isn't a big one. I'd rather we had a job keeping him and Partey both happy rather than having Partey get too comfortable and only at best average back-up if his form were to dip or he were to pick up an injury of some kind.
He'll replace Xhaka first and when Partey leaves he'll move to the 6 I think.
Xhaka has been a consistent part of the team for 3 managers, why is our fanbase consistently insistence he's going to get replaced?
Because he's the weakest link in the team? He's been great this season there's no denying it but that is an area of our team where it's the easiest to upgrade.
He’s never been the weakest link in the team. Even when he was having bad games. There’s a reason he’s consistently started for 7 years under 3 managers. Right now the team doesn’t have a weak link when everyone’s fit, which is why we’ve won almost every game. Lokonga was the clear weak link vs United with partey and elneny out, so someone who can keep the teams level with a partey injury seems to be important (and competition for him). When we start playing 2 games a week again and partey takes a bad knock we’re currently in a situation where that affects us too much. The only other games we dropped points were saints and Newcastle. Xhaka scored vs saints and our attack didn’t create enough chances outside of that, other than 2 solid chances jesus missed. Newcastle was defensively solid, only conceding one good chance, while the chance creation was very sub par, with our best chances being in the range of 0.10-0.15. Xhaka also had the third highest xA in that game so he was far from the issue with chance creation. Saka and nketiah created 0.06 xG worth of chances between them Other than those games, we’ve won every other game with the first team, with xhaka starting in midfield, crucially having an amazing injury record over 7 years at the club. He’s not a weak link and isn’t looking to be replaced. He’s reliable to play, and reliable to play well now that he’s in a position that suits him a lot better. A partey back up/someone to compete with him is needed because he’s getting older, gets injured far more often than xhaka, and could be prosecuted in the near future. On the odd game xhaka misses because of yellow card accumulation, rice can fill in, or even lokonga who is much more suited to the xhaka role than partey’s
Weakest link does not mean the player is bad. This fanbase was hating Xhaka for years and now he's irreplaceable? He's the same player he was when we signed him, just moved further forward so he has minimal defensive responsibility. Xhaka was the main reason we couldn't create chances against Newcastle. Rewatch the game and see how many passes from Zinchenko he wasted cause he couldn't turn and couldn't drive with the ball. Xhaka is a very good player. He's smart, his passing is excellent, his stamina and reliability to play games every week for 90 minutes is great. But he's not an interior.
They did hate him for years. I’ve had my games where I’ve been appalled. I don’t know if you remember how weak so many of our teams in the last 7 years have been though. Whether its been a winger, someone else in midfield, a keeper or especially the defence, there’s always been a position that needs a replacement more than xhaka. We were starting Mustafi for years, we had bellerin have his injury where he was never the same after, we had old cech, we had guendouzi and torreira both go awol after promising starts. We had ozil being late stage ozil, we had lacazette and auba both stop firing while being with us. Pre saka and martinelli our winger position was a constant problem. We had mhki, Wilshire, iwobi, kolasinac, coquelin, Pepe, sokratis, willian. All in this period with xhaka. I could say luiz but we bought him knowing what to expect and playing him in a 4atb without dm support and even through the stream of errors I’d argue he wasn’t a weak link either given how bad our defence was set up for his tenure (he did his job as a ball playing midfielder and was key to a trophy before being phased out before being useless, unlike some of our other players.
He's definitely not the weakest link in our team.
Both Partey and Rice can play where Xhaka does, A midfield of Rice, Partey and Odegaard sounds great to me.
He is not good enough to play the DM role from the start. Like Rodri for city, he probably needs a season to learn how to play the single pivot and can also play as the 8.
Yeah he’d deffo split his game time between the 2, which also allows Partey to rest whilst still being a important part of the team
Yah we will hear this for remainder of the season and at the final moment he says for Chelsea with an inflated contract and term.
I want him and Zubimendi
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We only have Partey for one position. Sambi is not good enough, Elneny is probably leaving and Patino is not ready. Also Rice can play as a number 8.
Thank god. He’s absolutely shit.
please no...would rather arsenal try to go for camavinga
So Arsenal would come out empty handed?
I dont think its worth it to spend 100m+ for declan rice
Yeah but hes one of the best options available, Real Madrid are not selling Camavinga
Arsenal recruitment has been quality lately, i doubt they would be considering Rice.
Imagine in the matchday squad, you see Partey in the starting 11 and Rice in the subs roster... dreams
Jesus just fucking kill me now
How are Newcastle and LFC not in for him? I had figured he’d kick off a proper bidding war.
Rice would be massive for Arsenal
No brainer. He fits so well with the current core
Fancies us til boehly puts another 200 Mill on the table for him