Declan Rice

[Tricky_Trev]

As soon as Sullivan gets Arsenal’s final offer, there’ll be no talk of us preparing a bid any more.

 

[not my fault!]

As soon as Sullivan gets Arsenal’s final offer, there’ll be no talk of us preparing a bid any more.

Exactly, he’ll either accept it and we move on having never bid or City match it on better terms. Why rush in with a bid when you can wait for the other bidding party to table their final offer and lay all their cards on the table. It stops a bidding war like West Ham want.

 

[Coatigan]

I’m pretty relaxed about this tbh. Will be chuffed if we get him, but not gutted if we don’t either. As City fans we should know by now to trust the process. If it’s not Rice, it’ll be someone else similarly good. They don’t get many transfers wrong.

I would argue that Jack Grealish is the only player I felt City in Pep's time targeted as 'the one'.

In the sense that it felt like the club only wanted him, were going to pay what it took or if it didn't come off, they were not looking at alternatives in that position, at the time. All others seemed to have rumours of alternatives, or were themselves the alternatives.

 

[alexmcity]

As soon as Sullivan gets Arsenal’s final offer, there’ll be no talk of us preparing a bid any more.

Only if Rice wants to go to Arsenal.

This 'Sullivan uses City to get more money' take doesn't make a lot of sense. Why would we tolerate it? We can dismiss the rumour.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

If he chose Arsenal over City then that would show a massive lack of ambition. Like imagine the likes of Haaland making that choice, it just wouldn’t happen. He could potentially end up back in the Europa League a year from now with no chance of winning the league or champions league.

I disagree. There are different kinds of ambition and signing for City is really just the easier option on the scale of ambition. Ambition isn’t just taking the easy option of just signing for a team that already wins titles.

If Rice wants to and does sign for Arsenal, his ambition is there in the form of him thinking that he’s the player who can make Arsenal a title winning team. There’ll be a drive there for him to make the difference.

Same with City’s signing of the likes of Gareth Barry; he could have taken the easy option signed for United or Chelsea, he was good enough to play for anyone, but all those early takeover signings chose City to be the players that pushed us on to win titles we’d been missing for so long.

I can’t stand Arsenal, but I won’t begrudge or belittle Rice’s choice if he wants to sign for them.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

If our people want him, we will outbid them. That is certain.

That’s pretty much the opposite of City’s transfer strategy for all players we’ve taken an interest over the last 8 years.

 

[Coatigan]

Only if Rice wants to go to Arsenal.

This 'Sullivan uses City to get more money' take doesn't make a lot of sense. Why would we tolerate it? We can dismiss the rumour.

There have been a couple dismissing the claim that City were 'preparing a bid' or had intentions of bidding. Didn't go as far as denying interest, but did dampen diMarzio's claims. Which is consistent with the take that WH are tempting Arsenal to go higher faster.

 

[himalayan_blues]

Rice will be on a proper mind set to win all with city like haaland did last season. We need some hungry players. Rice, givadiol will do. Kovacic may not be because he has already won 3/4 champions league...

 

[roach3]

Actually think Mason Mount would be a good fit.

We shop at harrods not Aldi

 

[alexmcity]

There have been a couple dismissing the claim that City were 'preparing a bid' or had intentions of bidding. Didn't go as far as denying interest, but did dampen diMarzio's claims. Which is consistent with the take that WH are tempting Arsenal to go higher faster.

Might be wrong but I think we want to sign Rice. If he wants to come, we'll pay what it takes to have him. It's up to him.