A week ago, Arsenal bid £80 million with a further £10 million in add-ons for Declan Rice. That bid was roundly described as “embarrassing” by numerous sources. We fast forward to today, and another club has matched that offer—£80 million with a further £10 million in add-ons—despite that club having much deeper pockets (and many more alleged financial violations). For those living under a rock, I’m describing Man City’s initial bid for Declan Rice.
Details are still sketchy, and it’s entirely possible that Man City have offered to structure payments on a schedule more to West Ham’s liking. They may have offered more of a pay rise to Rice, whose preference to stay in London has been widely reported. Still, it’s more than a bit odd that a club with Man City’s resources, having just seen Gündoğan leave on a free transfer, essentially match our bid when they could just as easily matched West Ham’s initial insistence on a £125m fee. Why are they nickel-and-diming?
It might be remotely possible, somewhere in the realm of approaching reality, that Man City are feeling the pressure resulting from those 115 alleged financial violations, and they’re worried about overspending. Wouldn’t it be something if FFP didn’t just punish Man City for past transgressions but also hampered future tranactions? Wouldn’t it be something if the Premier League actually brought them to heel, and one of the first fruits would be us signing Rice despite City’s interest? It’s far-fetched, to be sure, but it would sure would make for some sweet, sweet schadenfreude.
Of course, the ball is now in our court. We now know that Man City are just as willing to low-ball their bid as we are, and that’s despite their well-earned spent reputation for splurging and spending. West Ham wanted a bidding war, and Man City wet the bed with their offer. We’ve already invested a fair amount of time and energy in pursuing Rice; if we’re serious—if we’re to be seen as serious—we have no choice but to submit the kind of bid that will turn West Ham’s head. I wrote about us improving our bid by offering Nketiah, which prompted some discussion.
If Man City’s bid is in fact £80 million with a further £10 million in add-ons, we would be foolish to miss out on the player we’ve identified as our highest priority over £10 million here or £10 million there. I’m hardly suggesting we go the full Boehly here. We’re talking about a fee that amounts to walking-around money. If West Ham are serious about holding out for £100 million for Rice, and if Man City come in with a £90 million bid, we’d better seal this deal with a quickness. We’ve done well to whittle West Ham’s wish down from £125 million. Why squander the opportunity to secure Rice’s services over what amounts to a round error, especially when the alternative is to see him end up as a back-bencher to Rodri?
I hope I’m not going too far out on a limb when I suggest that we really should bring this odyssey to an end well before Penelope can finish weaving. We’ll have to thread the needle between low-balling West Ham and out-bidding Man City. If we can’t navigate the space between Scylla and Charybdis, well, Arteta and Edu will have some pertinent, pressing questions to answer…
Or by Lavia and Onana now and tell Rice if he stays at West Ham one more year we’ll pay him £350 thousand a week on a four year contract as a free agent?
Or buy Lavia and Onana now and tell Rice to stay at WHU for another season and we’ll pay him £350 thou a week as a free agent.
Embarrassing why I think Arsenals opening bid was more embarrassing to the point more like pathetic from Arsenal
This is how transfer negotiations between clubs are often conducted.
What utter tosh… City feeling the pressure? Firstly it’s not 115 charges, it’s 5 over multiple years. 4 of which were not even rules to breech during the window they claim!
Secondly, City still have £200m from winnings last season and have just received £295m for our treble, that’s just shy of £500m we can comfortably spend regardless of any daft FFP breech claims.
The reason City have matched your bid if for two reasons, 1) we don’t want either team getting in to a bidding war, it actually helps you! 2) we can offer far better terms on the deal so have zero need to up our bid. The laughable factor on your bid was you wanted to pay £15m upfront then the rest over 5 seasons lol. We will pay (rumoured) £40m now then another £40m next season with £10m achievable add-ons as we are likely to win the PL/CL again before you do.
So stop this whoe me BS and accept your club are trying to play the king but on pauper terms.
If Rice only wanted London and Arsenal he’d be holding your shirt by now, Arsenal would hold all the bargaining cards on this deal bur clearly you don’t. He may well sign for you, he may not, but either way enough of the rubbish.
The £10 million Arsenal add ons are all hard to achieve. That’s simply Arsenal doing what they normally do which is low ball initially. Why should City make a stupid bid just because they can? It’s Arsenal who have a track record of eventually paying too much. Want a list?
Keep in mind this is City’s first bid not umpteenth try.
If Arsenal want a player so much make a fair offer or forget it.
You’re confusing the player’s desire with the club’s. It’s not up to Rice to accept our bid. His reported desire to stay in London is a factor, but it’s still West Ham’s prerogative to hold out for a bigger bid. It’s obviosly to their advantage to see Man CIty get involved to make this into more of a bidding war, but you have to admit that it’s a bit surprising to see that their bid is superior to ours in structure only.
Funny bunch you goonies. City make a bid that they think is what he is worth and they are penny pinching but if we blow you out of the water we are ruining football. Realistically your add ons will never be paid as you won’t achieve the targets, whereas City will, probably all next season. Absolutely no player who wants to be the best he can be would choose Arsenal over City, beat you can hope for is buying our back up players.
Mate, you sound like a particularly crass parvenue. Congratulations on your treble, but shouting down clubs with history like Arsenal’s from atop a mound of filthy petropounds isn’t a great look. Maybe you’ll get away with it, but you won’t gain respect from clubs that are sustainable and value probity.
Aye, Man City have painted themselves into a corner there.To have blown us out of the water would add to the notion that Man City are ruining football…but bidding something that exceeded our bid just a bit might have allowed them to seal the deal without adding to that notion.
At what point can Rice buy out his contract?
That’s an interesting notion. I haven’t seen any reporting on that, but it’s something we’ve seen other players do.I’m left hoping that the absence of any such reports suggests that the club and player have an understanding that will suit each side’s needs (and result in RIce joining Arsenal).
When the “Great” City fans start trolling, don’t you just know the panic buttons are being feverishly pressed. 5 or 115, they’re still going down.
Going down? Want a bet? Oh of course you’ll claim you’re short of cash. No Russian backing you now just an invitation to Visit Rwanda. What a principled club. Hilarious.
Most of the comments from City folk have been spot on in providing a reasoned response to the main article. It’s not City’s fault if the media described our £90m bid as “embarrassing” while City’s £90m bid as “blowing us out of the water”.
However when you mix up false claims of us having Russian money (never was Russian owned) while ignoring your own mid-eastern State ownership that’s a bit rich (pun intended).
TrevorP, this would be a case of whataboutism. It does nothing to resolve Jax’s point. Man City have been accused of numerous financial violations. The fact that we have a sponsorhip deal encouraging people to visit Rwanda has nothing to do with those financial violations. One might even make the claim that increasing tourism to the country might improve the country’s situation on various levels. Tourists expect a pleasant experience, after all, and generally prefer to avoid countries whose governments abuse their citizens.
I think Arsenal should walk away from this deal as with that £100 million we can still 2 or 3 best players like Alessandro Bastoni,Dušan Vlahović to take the team to another level
That’s a fair point, but I suspect that the players you named would cost more than we think. We’d been linked to Vlahovic in the past but without any real progress. There seems to be something difficult about dealing with Italian clubs. They drive some pretty tough deals.
Arsenal should simply walk away from this deal..Why start a bidding war with city.? They will beat us to Rice, just as they beat us to the EPL…Instead, that money can be used to buy players like Onana of Everton and Milinsevic Servic of Lazio. etc, etc.I dont even see what is so special about this Rice of a Guy..He is just another over hyped and over rated English Player…Arsenal, A word is enough for the wise.
Sadly, if City are interesting enough in making this a bidding war, Arsenal won’t walk way; they’ll get left in the dust. The players you mention could offer meaningful depth, but I don’t think they (or other similar players) would offer the quality we need to build on this season’s progress. If we’re to loose both Xhaka and Partey this summer, we’re going to need top-shelf talent, and it’s not for nothing that we, Man City, Bayern, and Man U have been linked with RIce.
Arsenal are attempting to haggle in the manner that most buyers should or actually do ( except for naive US tourists) when visiting a bazaar. The process should result in a fair market price, but requires both buyer and seller to play by the same rules. Unfortunately, even though Arsenal may have started to high ( IMHO), WH regardless of their overpriced valuation seem unwilling to play by the same rules. They view Rice as a one-time opportunity to find several new players and seem willing to hold out for as much as they can.
Whether City has helped WH by entering the process, since with no other bidders, WH would have either capitulated to Arsenal or been left with an unhappy Rice for another year and then leaving for free next year, is that nuclear. While City did sweeten the deal a bit, i.e., more upfront, etc., they did not move the price upward by much. That seems to indicate the market is telling WH that Rice is worth 80 plus add-ons, more or less. That seems to identify that adjustment of payment structure and the trimmings should close the deal. We do not know exactly whether Arsenal do not want to prepay as much as WH want, supposedly two big payments, or whether Arsenal can do so given their other pending deals and what they might reap for their immune nent departures. Their dilemma is whether waiting a month will bring WH to the table as they also get desperate or will allow City, if they care, to swoop in for a few (don’t you just love that?) more million.
Of course, if Rice was not home-grown and more experienced, etc., would he be worth more than 70 to 75million. At least one article today says he is not, but unfortunately WH recognized an overheated market (think recent real estate , Bitcoin, and dot.com) and set a very high price that Arsenal and City bought into. I have walked away from vendors in Myanmar, Shanghai, Morocco, and Uzbekistan, and even Tokyo, with the merchant then chasing me to get me to buy before I went elsewhere. On the other hand I did so in Hong Kong and nobody flinched because they knew some naive Western (think mostly American) tourists would walk in and buy at the asking price because they assumed you never bargain and it might be a good deal because it was overseas.
Personally, I think that Arsenal should not overpay and need to only inch upward, but also begin to seriously search for alternatives, as they have done to some extent. That or those would offer a Rice alternative, (s), but also put pressure on WH, as they might see their golden goose slip away (assuming City also go away).
What Arsenal cannot afford, however, is a return to the Wenger era and theory that believed you can always wait to the 11th hour and get your man and deal, only to find, as the curtain was drawn or the cupboard door was opened, the room was empty and the cupboard was bare.
Lol with the Nouveau Riche oilers state coming on here dictating their terms.lets face it.You don’t need Rice.Not even as a bench warmer,picking splinters out of his arse.So what’s your aim seeing as you effectively haven’t bid more than Arsenal.Could it be to prevent us getting Rice which would mean you’re worried.surely not?Go Chuck your I’ll gotten gains elsewhere.If the prem would grow a pair you’d be in league 2 by now.Here’s hoping.
well-said, Pete. I wrote previously about Rice’s options (stay put, go to City, go to Arsenal). Surely, going to City would grease the skids on winning silverware – but he’d become just another passenger. Coming to Arsenal would enable him to be a key member driving the club forward. To his credit, he seems more interested in the latter. We’ll see if West Ham are willing to let that happen…
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