Rice, Zubimendi and Odegaard is an elite high level midfield trio, best midfield we’ve had in years. It’s purely down to the coach to make that talent work
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That’s the hope this season. I really want to see Odegaard firing on all cylinders and hopefully Rice can shine in the left 8 goal he has goalscoring ability he’s shown it no reason he can’t have a very good season.
What makes this midfield trio better than
Rice, Partey, Odegaard?
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Nah, we did well with a midfield two of Vieira and Gilberto, whose main attributes weren’t creativity, so if we can add some Pires like creativity and goals on the left(Eze, I’m looking at you) to aid Saka on the right, we might be okay as Ode will probably be given more freedom to link with the front 3. Rice’s occasional bursts into the final third will help too. Just need to get that LW sorted though.
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Zubimendi has a much higher technical level and better football brain compared to Partey in my view.
Lets see how he gets on in the backend in he PL before coming to any definitive conclusions
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It’s got nothing to do with the pre-season friendlies but I’m not opposed to the idea of looking elsewhere coach wise if this side falls short again. Plenty of coaches would kill to have the talent we have in this side
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On paper, we have enough talent in midfield for us to have various combinations that can dominate opponents. I mean a Rice, Merino and Havertz trio has a good mix of robustness and technique.
Maybe it is Arteta that I don’t trust.
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Maybe Thomas Frank will have been sacked by Spurs by then 
Yeah, I think Rice, Partey, Odegaard were better.
Rice has his flaws and I’ve been writing about them often, but for me there is no doubt he’s an upgrade on Xhaka in that left 8 position.
We had some other issues but Rice has usually done his job there and still has a lot of room to improve there considering he hasn’t played that position much and is still learning. And I really do think his attacking positioning is getting better and better the more he plays there.
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hehe amazing what a couple of free kicks can do to raise your status in the game.
Joking aside, it’s good to see Arsenal players being nominated more regualrly - hopefully more to come in the future.
Rice, Bellingham and Palmer being nominated is an absolute disgrace lol
I feel like it’s a ploy to generate more fan interest by having a bunch of clubs’ players in the running. They should really just have 3-5 players.
In a deeper role than what we were used to last season.
Often dropping between the CBs, rotating with Zubimendi and starting our play.
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Yeah I think that suits us better. He can take freekicks but don’t need to have him in the final third.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Zubi and him continue to switch positions depending on the context in the game.
Thought Rice struggled today, was quite sloppy in several moments.
He can cross the ball very well, but he really has to kick-on this season now.
Price tag aside, he should be offering us much more from the core competencies (vision, passing) you expect from a midfielder.
That said, great recovery after the mistake from the corner lol, that was wild.
I think he looked a bit off in the rest of the preseason.
I thought this was his best game so far.
He was a bit sloppy a times though, I’ll give you that. Hopefully it’s just rust.
Games like the one next week are where he thrives.
He isn’t that type of player tho. It’s difficult to expect something from someone who doesn’t posses those specific attributes.
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I thought he was decent. He best moment was when he tracked back and showed his pace to recover the ball. The crowd really appreciated that today and he acknowledged it.
Rice and Zubimendi this season are going to be 
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