Rice to Chelsea will only make us better. He has bags of experience for someone his age. Fantastic leadership qualities and SUPER underrated technically. Only valid reason that he shouldn’t come is because of Ampadu which is completely understandable.

For me it’s hard because I rate Ampadu but going off of what I’ve seen of the two, Rice is the better player. He’s definitely a better option for the short term. Long term I’m really not sure. It might be a case where we buy Rice and loan Ampadu again.

If he performs in that 3rd loan spell he should challenge for the starting spot with Rice the season after the loan. Around that time we will probably see Kante playing less games and etc in order for there to be healthy competition between Rice and Ampadu for the DM spot.

It’s a great problem to have. Only issue for me is if we should pay however the amount we have to for Rice. Let’s say Ampadu becomes the starter and Rice wants to leave he will have great resale value. This deal is a massive positive really.

Reason being is that the competition will naturally make the two better players and whoever comes out on top will be a TOP player for us and whoever wants to leave and etc will have a big resale value. A win win situation. Id pay 55-60 million max for Rice though.