No worries. Well you can rest easy now knowing that it happens everywhere.
Interesting points. So do you think anyone can come in and elevate you? If someone quite proven like Rice can't, what level of player are you looking for? Mbappe? Or is your system (on the pitch and behind the scenes) so broken that no one can look good in it? Genuine questions.
You Arsenal fans are soo precious when it comes to your Rice.Farqing
I'm dumber for having read that nonsense.
We have endured mediocre players for so long that now that we have some top drawer ones, I want to defend them with my life. I'm more protective of Rice than I am of my husband.
It was a stupid comment that deserved derision.
There was nothing stupid about his comment, no idea why you're being so insulting about it. It genuinely was a poor game.
I don't think anyone was comparing them in terms of what they've achieved in their careers - there's no contest there, obviously, with Case being a legend. But there's a big age gap and Rice is just coming into his best years while Casemiro's may be behind him. What was being compared though were the transfer fees considering the age of each player and where they look to be in their careers. People here have said that perhaps, like Varane, RM only get rid of their (best) players once they think they're on the decline. Not sure if Case is there yet but his performances dropping off a cliff like this has to be pretty worrying.
Perhaps. I'm also not saying the fee for Rice wasn't a bit obscene, you get to those numbers and it all becomes a bit ridiculous to be honest, but i think what @NinjaZombie is correct. We wanted Rice not just because he was a good player in an area of need. It was the total package, the age, the leadership, the personality, the nationality, the experience of the EPL, the room to get even better. The fact that he was ready to come in and basically make an instant impact. We felt it was that package that meant he was worth the overpay on, when with other deals we've been more reluctant to.
The stupid comments I was referring to were along the tone of "we should have recruited him for what Case did for half a season", which is incredibly short sighted and frankly pretty stupid. What Case did in "half a season" (more than that, but whatever) is way above anything Rice has shown in his career to date - and he's been playing for quite a few years now. It's also what I'm referring to with regards to the single handedly convincing people that all a DM needs to do is block and intercept. His range as a footballer is limited. He's nothing like Casemiro.
I do agree it is more palatable to overspend on someone like Rice for the reasons you say. I'm not convinced 105m will ever be worth it. As I mentioned in previous posts, I still think you need a proper striker, which will potentially be just as, if not more expensive.
It was a stupid comment. Rice had an excellent game, which was evidenced by the eye test, the stats and his contribution to the result.
He wasn't excellent, and no one on the pitch on Sunday was. It was a boring game with very little to get excited about.
Saliba and Gabriel were excellent. Rice was very good.
"I won't change my mind regardless of how bad Casemiro is this season". Incredibly short sighted indeed.
Check out the reactions starting at the bottom of the second page of this thread when Fernandinho played against Liverpool at the peak of their powers. This is a player of Rice's profile, but with better passing than Rice has demonstrated. When you think "brilliant" or "excellent" performances for a player of this profile, this is the kind of game you think of. An almost universal opinion, even from Liverpool fans, that he really made his presence felt, owned that midfield and stood out, even amongst the stars.
That's... not what I'm saying.
This is why I originally said people are trying to force a narrative that there has been no better DM than him. The whole argument that he would have fixed our team woes is also funny. We would have probably looked a tad better but it's not like we didn't see a top class DM at work last season.
I'm 100% on board with this. Run of the mill performances being branded "excellent" or "brilliant midfielder performance". It's transparent.
It was a "boring" game in that the football wasn't free-flowing with lots of chances going around, but tactically it was quite fascinating to watch. Particularly from an Arsenal perspective because this is the type of performance we've never been able to put together against City. Last season we played with our usual style and got spanked both games. This season, Arteta knew we had to try to contain them and be more measured, rather than force the issue and getting exposed. And Rice and our CBs are probably the biggest reasons we achieved this (having Saliba instead of Holding also helped immensely).
I don't know, when you keep City to 1 shot on target and 4 shots in total, I think that's a pretty "brilliant" performance, not really run of the mill. Of course it wasn't all down to Rice, but he was certainly one of our best players on the pitch. Probably only the CBs were better than him IMO, maybe Jesus. Keep in mind we went into this game with the demoralising history of having suffered 12 consecutive league defeats against them since 2015. This was as much a mental/psychological victory than anything else. I have waited a long time to feel like we even belong on the same pitch as City.
I was wondering when this would come up. It really wasn't fascinating. It was a very tactical game indeed, but it was incredibly straightforward with very little to take from it, due to key players missing and neither team playing at full strength.
Agreed, as a top of the table clash, it was extremely low quality. Which was a shame as I was proper hungover, slouched on the sofa and wanted to see a good game.
I don't think he meant it as a slight on Rice. He's a player with some excellent traits who was signed to perform specific tasks in a particular system. In this sense, the system's success will define if he's worth the exorbitant transfer fee. Now, his fate at Arsenal may be juxtaposed to Casemiro's at United. I'm sure you won't deny that the Brazilian is a world-class defensive midfielder, and one of the best in his position. Yet, you can see how his impact is gradually waning at United because our team still looks like a bunch of individuals trying to plug holes and carry the team on their own. It's not farfetched to suggest that either Rice would look as lost as Casemiro in United's midfield, or that Casemiro (with bags of experience and a winning mentality to match) would be an equally good or even better addition (at least in the short/midterm) to this young Arsenal side. If you win the league, the 100 million for Rice will be perceived as money well-spent. We are already looking at (another) multi-million flop, but this doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of both Rice and Casemiro.
What I took from it was Arteta finally got one over Pep.
When you consider that his 4 subs all combined for our goal (albeit Lady Luck also playing a huge part), he couldn't have managed the game much better. It was interesting that when Arteta subbed off Zinchenko and put on Tomiyasu, Pep moved Doku to the other wing. I enjoy watching the managers trying to out-think each other. Master vs apprentice and all.You're basically happy that you're not getting twonked by big teams as you used to a few years back. That's fine, but it doesn't make that game fascinating by any stretch of the imagination. I think the result and giddiness has seriously made Arsenal fans lose sense of perspective on this game, both from a collective and individual standpoint.What I took from it was Arteta finally got one over Pep.
Yes I imagine for the neutral it wasn't fascinating. But from an Arsenal perspective, it's almost unbelievable how this team has been transformed. When people say we haven't really clicked yet going forward and we're less exciting this season, IMO this is why - Arteta is making us better at absorbing pressure and limiting the opposition to few chances. He always talks about "controlling both boxes". We have joint most clean sheets (4/8 games) in the league. Not too long ago we were shipping goals like crazy, even towards the end of last season which is why we bottled the league. I think Arteta has learned from that and to keep a clean sheet against City is just unheard of for us.
Rice isn’t better than Bissouma.
Casemeiro last year wasn’t better than Rice.
It was a poor game, very little quality.
He was. He literally improved United's midfield. He has his lapse of moments but that is his game. Rice plays safe football, Casemiro likes to use the ball more to attack. Last year his performance in many games were top notch.
Oh yes, he absolutely was.
Rice was top quality for West Ham too, Rice plays safe football but he was one of the most progressive defensive midfielders last year in terms of carrying the ball, Casemeiro used the ball in terms of passing options, but even last season he was capable of some of the most shocking performances you’ll ever see from a DM passing wise, there were games where he was getting passing success stats of 58-65% which is horrible.
Agree
I think the first part of the season he was, the last part Rice was better so overall it evened out, Casemeiro on the ball had some all time bad games from a top class DM.
Rice was mediocre for westham in most of the game to the point people were mocking 100m being spent on him. So let us not rewrite history. He was good , but so was Casemiro. His performance against Barca , Newcastle (carabao final), Spurs home, chelsea home, chelsea away, villa home, the fa cup semis to name some, were on different level and typical Case performance he gave when playing for Madrid. Rice till now has never dominated a mf like that. It's even funny we are comparing who is better when at their best.
