Declan Rice

[Tugay One Cup]

Is it?

According to Eni's broken clock, aye.

 

[domalino]

The window hasn’t officially opened yet. People need to trust the club especially the scouting network.

Many more opportunities will present themselves from now until August. This doesn’t spell the end of the spending.

Transfer window opened June 14th.

 

[Thaksins Love Child]

100m for a good midfielder, far from great with 1 year left on his contract. Seems madness to me.

 

[Bluewonder]

Sure looks like we had a valuation and Arsenal went above our valuation so we walk away.

Just as we have done before and will do again.

It appears to be a club policy that has been in place for some time. During which time we have won plenty of trophies.

Some people may say we bottled it, some will say they did or didn't want him.

I think he strengthens Arsenal quite considerably. Mind you they have the Champions League fixtures to add to their schedule this year so they need to.

I'm not the slightest bit worried though. We just won the treble and that smile will take quite some downturn to remove.

Not convinced Arsenal will be strengthened that much in midfield with them seemingly set to lose Partey and Xhaka for minimal amounts.

Rice is a good player but isn't better than those two combined, and that's without considering the massive fee that may stop them from strengthening other areas.

 

[samuelyeboah]

So disappointing. No Bellingham now not even Rice. With Gundo gone on top of that we’ll be weaker next season. Better hope Rodri never gets injured, he’s going to have to play about 60 games.

Really fucking gutted we pulled out of this just over a few more million. This is the summer we should have really gone for it, as Treble winners, not let bloody rivals catch up. Fucking shite. Fuck off arsenal.

Heads are completely gone. You're embarrassing yourself

 

[BillyShears]

Wouldn't be so sure. In saying that, if Bernie stays, I will consider it the best business we do!

Kicking the can down the road on Bernardo probably isn't the smartest thing in the world. What Gundo said about Pep wanting the two of them to leave together, could equally apply to Bernie. That isn't the right thing to do. The right thing to do is to evolve the squad and refresh it so that when Pep leaves he doesn't leave a Ferguson situation with a bunch of ageing players who have won it all.

Having said all that. selling Bernie this summer would mean having to buy TWO players whereas if you keep him, you can probably just about get away with buying no one else and just going with Kovacic as the Gundo replacement. Tricky decisions, but I guess it all depends upon who is available this summer and what they'd cost.

 

[pavelsrnicek]

Wouldn't be so sure. In saying that, if Bernie stays, I will consider it the best business we do!

Bernardo staying would be brilliant but we still need to bolster the midfield. It feels like this summer is the last chance for an overhaul under Pep. Next summer players will wonder if they want one year of Pep. We also need to replace Gundogan’s creativity and bolster our options because KDB and Mahrez are 32.

The club have done brilliantly over the last few seasons to refresh but keep standards high. We face a huge challenge when Pep goes my concern is that if he goes when KDB and Mahrez need replacing that’s a huge challenge for whoever’s next.

 

[JewelZee]

This is silly reasoning. We should not care what West Ham wants. We simply should have our max valuation and always stop there. The worst thing we can do is overpay out of wanting to not look stupid to others. That unfortunately would be quite stupid.

If our max evaluation is 99 million. We should not spend a penny more.

90% of the players we lost out on didn't do too well . And it was a pleasure we lost out on them

You nailed this one. And true to our mode of operation we opted to walk away when the numbers went beyond our valuation. City understand that a large part of having the upper hand is operating on your terms and not being forced beyond what they believe a player to be worth. They obviously weigh opportunity cost heavily in their approach and based on the astronomical success we've had to date why would they change course.

 

[Bluewonder]

Don't take this the wrong way guys, but 24 hours ago people on here were calling Eni Aluko all sorts of insults for saying she thought the City bid was just to pump up the price Arsenal pay.

Now we have people seriously putting up the idea we made the bid either for PR so Khaldoon can say we don't spend, or because we want some completely unrelated player or club to do something.


If someone on talksport came out with these theories there'd be 30 pages on what a stupid twat they are before lunch.

That isn't really what she said.

She said that Arteta might have asked Guardiola to put in a bid just to encourage Arsenal to go in all guns blazing.

That idea is fundamentally absurd.

 

[danielwood5]

Don't take this the wrong way guys, but 24 hours ago people on here were calling Eni Aluko all sorts of insults for saying she thought the City bid was just to pump up the price Arsenal pay.

Now we have people seriously putting up the idea we made the bid either for PR so Khaldoon can say we don't spend, or because we want some completely unrelated player or club to do something.


If someone on talksport came out with these theories there'd be 30 pages on what a stupid twat they are before lunch.

To be fair, didn't Aluko say that she would get her mates at a rival club to put in a bid for a player to make her own club pull their fingers out and put in a bid, that's very slightly different and a bit more of a lunatic tactic than anything suggested here.