Tbf initially it looked like a brilliant deal, he was a free agent and that’s why we improved his contract a bit. He was still young and just was coming after a great season in BL where he was in the team of the season.
Just never managed to fit in, but also had a lot of small injuries which didn’t help him.
In the end can’t say it was a deal that hurt us much.
I think in 2024 alone, Raya already proved that he is not just marginal improvement.
He is a more experience, matured player than Rams.
Check Tomi and Zinny, not yet 100% healthy and we are now in late October.
Check Timber, if we did not have Calafiori, probably he would re-injured (muscle or whatever) sooner than later.
Kiwior proved by himself that, he is not quite capable.
I would say, Kiwior was a mistake, but definitely not Calafiori, at least at this point.
Rice was immense last season, and as important as Ode in midfield last season.
He was one of the reasons we pushed ourselves to 89 points.
Lavia cost about 50 (or 40m?) and he cannot get any time at Chelsea.
Caicedo 100m+, and how did he do so far? Underwhelming.
We may get someone cheaper but no one could guarantee the quality and output.
One thing for sure, Rice upgraded our midfield.
For the past two seasons, I don’t see any of our new signings are really “luxury”.
Most players he signed were upgrades and contend to be starters.
Not like 100m Grealish can sit more than he play.
If we can survive the whole of last season without Calafiori, we can survive this season without him as well.
You have Kiwior sitting on the bench who contributed last season and at one point, was considered by fans to be better than Zinchenko.
That makes Calafiori a luxury.
We managed to get 84 points without Rice a season before.
Can you really say if we would have bought Mac Allister for 35m instead of spending 105m on Rice, we would have got less points?
The existence of quality midfielders bought for a reasonable amount suggests that paying 105m for Rice was a luxury for Arteta.
No he didn’t.
What Raya has done in 2023 & 2024, Ramsdale did it for us in 2022
You can keep working with Ramsdale to improve his game but Arteta had the luxury to spend 28m on a keeper who added marginal improvement on Ramsdale
The amount of financial backing Arteta has received is something Wenger never had. Arteta has spend more money than what Wenger did in his entire tenure.
The team had to be built from scratch, I’m willing to give Arteta a bit of a pass based on that. (and that he also succeeded)
We were not that good and in trouble.
Didn’t we all agree that we got lucky to have Saliba and Gabriel all healthy last season?
To have Califiori that could cover both CB and LB, why is it a bad deal?
He is an upgrade of Kiwior, Tomi and Zinny, all LB that we have.
Like I said, it there is something to be complained, it should be Kiwior, not Calafiori.
In the end, White/Timer/Saliba/Gabriel/Calafiori lineup is much better than the one you have to include Zinny/Tomi/Kiwior.
I’d say it never happened and no one can tell.
So why compare Rice to someone cheaper and never played for us?
Maybe we would get 98 points? Or maybe we would get 78?
Rice was a success here and he will be our key player for years.
We did not buy him to sit on the bench or being a rotation. He is our key player.
Jorgi is going to leave and Partey showed his legs are gone from matches this season.
Rice is a proper replacement for them.
If you don’t remember, let me remind you that Raya got the EPL Golden Glove and TOTY awards last season. Marginal upgrade or not, an upgrade is an upgrade, as we always mentioned “fine margins”'; and we sold Rams, not like he is still sitting on our bench.
To cover for Saliba & Gabriel, we already have Kiwior, Tomiyasu, Ben White.
To buy an additional cover on top of it is a Luxury.
If you think Calafiori is essential, then keeping hold of 25m Kiwior is a luxury.
Either way one or two of those defensive players is a luxury for Arteta.
In summer of 2023, We needed a midfielder for both 8 & 6 position since Partey is always injured, Jorginho is old and we sold Xhaka.
Instead of spending 105m on 2 players to cover those position, we spent it all on one player.
All your argument about having cover because we got lucky with Saliba & Gabriel…How come they don’t apply to our midfield. A better use of finances would be to purchase more than one player for 105m.
The fact that we didn’t care for Jorgi/Partey replacement & spent all that money on single player…Luxury
Something you can only get if you have the financial luxury to replace one TOTY keeper with another keeper for high transfer value.
@ronniec If you really think Calafiori & Raya were essential, show me your post asking for such players in the summer windows.
Is this you?
What’s that meant to prove? Loads of people thought that when Ramsdale signed that contract.
It proves that replacing Ramsdale was not essential - at the very least not in ronniec’s mind
But suddenly now it is and not a luxury
I mean, it doesn’t.
you keep mentioning the quantity, but never the quality.
also, we did not sell, doesn’t mean we did not want to.
last summer we showed that we would sell, if the price is right.
In the end, Tomi and Zinny are injury prone, and Timber is back from a full season off… we rather keep more players than selling at all cost.
no need to make it a big deal on Rice.
Even Pep made a bid of 90m+ on him.
we might have overpaid a bit, but not over too much.
We paid 10m more than Pep, what’s the fuss?
who knew Rams had a dropoff and not able to improve?
are you a prophet?
gosh, again, you have time to dig out old post from 2 years ago…
That’s luxury…
You are missing the point.
Buying Rice was the right thing to do but it was a luxury
Did you in the summer of 2023 ask for Ramsdale replacement?
agree to disagree, that is how you keep the team being competitive, not luxury.
What does it matter? As it turned out replacing him was the right thing.
It matters if you tracked the gist of the conversation.
Arteta has the financial luxury to upgrade a position which is already doing very well; while Wenger didn’t even have the luxury to upgrade each position of the starting XI
if he is not up to standard, especially not up to our gaffer’s standard, then move on, get a better one.
Arteta would get sticks if he have under performing players on his team anyway… so either he has to please you, or he has to please someone else. Can’t win anyway.
That’s Luxury. It was not necessity.
Arteta can afford to do this, Arteta can afford to demand such standards because he has the luxury to spend 28m on a keeper willy nilly
Well that isn’t true. Arteta and the club have prioritised. If they hadn’t we’d have signed a striker.
