EPL TALK: Stump up extra cash for Rice or starve the league, Arsenal

DECLAN Rice is at risk of becoming Nicolas Cage’s dinosaur’s bone. In 2007, Cage outbid Leonardo DiCaprio for a 70-million-year-old skull of a Tyrannosaurus, because he could, because he had more money than sense.

Manchester City have no need for expensive fossils – that’s what the Saudi league is for – but they do have more cash than necessary, which potentially leaves Arsenal looking like DiCaprio after a bidding war, with one obvious difference. DiCaprio just fancied adding a talking piece at dinner parties. The Gunners actually need a defensive midfielder.

Their next campaign will depend upon it. And, to keep the hyperbole ticking over, the immediate future of the English Premier League hinges on Rice’s eventual destination, too.

It is the time of pointless speculation, admittedly, when we fill time and space with hysterical transfer chat between the real business. One key signing is always threatening to make or break careers or clubs, but this one feels genuinely different.

As transfer dealings go, Rice represents the most open of goals for Arsenal. His unruffled game, intercepting cleanly and moving upfield quickly, makes him ideal for Mikel Arteta, whose Gunners flourished through recycled possession. Rice is underrated only in the way that a young Roy Keane was underrated ahead of his move to Manchester United.

As Keane often points out, Brian Clough’s instructions to the young midfielder ahead of his Nottingham Forest debut were deceptively simple. Win the ball. Keep the ball. Pass the ball. In Keane’s words, not enough elite midfielders do these three things as consistently as they should. Rice does. His 63 successful interceptions were easily the highest in the EPL last season. He also led the league in gaining possession (334 times), in a distinctly average West Ham side.

Arteta intends to build his side around a 24-year-old who encapsulated recycled possession, lifted a European trophy and dropped anchor in front of England’s back four, with no intention of being dragged away. Arteta wants Rice. Rice wants Arsenal. The Gunners want Rice and the Hammers can live with a local icon joining more benign rivals.

There are no downsides, beyond the money. West Ham are correctly hanging on for a full £100 million, to give them half a chance of replacing a generational talent with a half-decent replacement. But Arsenal are bartering with the subtlety of a pasar malam shopper, throwing in £75 million and add-ons and caveats, anything to avoid a lump sum close to the asking price.

Title-defining piece vs fun trinket

In other words, a tailor-made transfer may collapse over £10 million or so, the sort of pocket change that barely buys a Wout Weghorst in a grotesquely inflated market, which must alarm Arsenal supporters and anyone with a passing interest in the Premier League's competitive integrity. Because in the other corner, Manchester City’s power brokers are giggling like Nicolas Cage's entourage, wondering what it must be like for lesser mortals who operate with a semblance of financial restraint.

For Arsenal, Rice is demonstrably the final piece in Arteta’s jigsaw. An obvious fit to rival Robin van Persie at Manchester United or Virgil van Dijk at Liverpool, a potentially title-defining move for a squad approaching a peak.

For Manchester City, Rice is a luxury item, a fun trinket to show off to friends. He’s not particularly needed. But like the uber-rich comparing yachts, City react negatively to the idea of anyone else having a bigger one.

Pep Guardiola already boasts the best-in-show in Rodri, who dominated the position last season. Kalvin Phillips is still on the books and Mateo Kovacic provides a handy back-up for either, so any interest in Rice seems crass and unnecessary, like Veruca Salt demanding an Oompa-Loompa without really knowing why. It doesn’t matter. Just cough up the £100 million and deal with the consequences later.

This warped financial relationship between Manchester City and everyone else is untenable, but reflective of the billionaires’ era of unrestrained excess, with the one-percenters buying all the pretty things for reasons that range from the geopolitical (elite football) to the eccentric (Twitter) to the dangerous and tragic (poorly regulated submersibles).

In an inferior league, Al Hilal do not require the services of Portugal international Ruben Neves to challenge their Saudi rivals , any more than Al Nassr need Cristiano Ronaldo or Al Ittihad crave the ageing talents of Karim Benzema and N'Golo Kante. Just as City’s omnipotence isn’t jeopardised by a gaping hole in defensive midfield. There isn't one. They buy because they can. Money gets what money wants.

Of course, defending champions must strengthen their squads. Sir Alex Ferguson’s finest achievement was not building a great side, but replacing one with another. Famously, he broke the British transfer record in 2001, when he signed Juan Sebastian Veron, who was also seen to be an extravagant purchase for an already dominant club at the time.

But Veron offered Manchester United a tactical alternative in the Champions League, where Ferguson’s 4-4-2 looked a little formulaic and predictable. More importantly, United didn’t have a player of near-identical attributes. Veron offered something genuinely different.

Rice doesn’t, not for Manchester City. Rodri delivers in the same position and role. Indeed the club's interest feels less tactical than cynical, eyeing a talent to merely deny a rival and further control an EPL that already lacks genuine surprise.

Guardiola doesn’t need Rice at City to compete, but the rest of us should probably want Rice at Arsenal, if we’re going to care about the competition.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 28 books.

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