People have been saying this Rice deal seems weird but, from our side, I'm pretty sure we've just been waiting for confirmation on who is departing.
Rice would be taking the Gundo spot and I'm pretty sure Ilkay himself didn't even know until a few days ago if Barca could sign him, never mind us.
Imagine if we were in a situation where we end up with Rice and Kovacic and both Bernardo and Gundogan ended up staying because nobody could afford or wanted them. Doesn't seem like a bad problem for us to have in terms of team selection and rotation but it would cause problems.