That seems rather quick for such a high fee. I'd have to think that will make more transfers difficult this year and next (esp. getting another midfielder). We really wanted to get this one over the line.

I still have mixed feelings about this deal. Great player, no doubt, but this does feel like a win-now move with a lot of backfire potential, rather than the steady, shrewd, long-term squad building that has produced great results the past couple of years. Maybe we are at that level now where this is what it takes to continue moving forward, but I guess I just really enjoyed this past season and don't want to be hurt again by misplaced hope and expectation. :P

[–] SpontaneousPolarBear 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What if he has always been in our plans and we needed to move now to make sure we don’t lose him?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm pretty sure that's what happened. City really spooked us, and we may have been surprised by Rice's level of interest in them.

It's just that of late we seemed to have a Plan B ready to go if a team played hardball with us (like with the Mudryk saga). This deal feels very different: we're letting West Ham kind of run the show here. Arteta clearly values Rice exceptionally high, but it feels like a real divergence from our recent deal-making.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

@gunnersaurus @I_am_the_grass I wouldn't be surprised if Arsenal always expected to end up having to pay in that sort of structure. Obviously, they'd have preferred not to, hence holding out (pun unintentional! 😁) for smaller, longer instalments, but I suspect KSE went into this deal ready for the worst case scenario