Arsenal are comparing Declan Rice to 32-year-old Liverpool player, after signing him today

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Arsenal think their signing of Declan Rice can be just as transformative as Virgil van Dijk arriving at Liverpool in 2018.

The Gunners announced Rice as a new player this afternoon, paying a record fee for a British footballer. It ends months of speculation, with Liverpool also said to have been in for the 24-year-old at one stage.

Doing a deep dive into the transfer, The Athletic dispelled those claims that the Reds were trying to sign the former West Ham captain. They reportedly never met with Rice over fears of losing Jude Bellingham if they did. We all know how that turned out.

Interestingly though, that isn’t the end of their involvement in this one. That’s because The Athletic claim that Arsenal are actually modelling their capture of Rice on two Liverpool signings from 2018.

Mikel Arteta reportedly believes that the England international can do for his team what Van Dijk and Alisson Becker did for Jurgen Klopp five years ago.

It’s claimed that in seeing Rice as the best around in his position, Arsenal think he is the key to taking them to the next level.

Arsenal looking for Rice impact

It isn’t for us to judge how other teams do their business. The likes of Arsenal have brought in some very good – and very smart – signings over a number of years now. But to compare Rice to either Van Dijk or Alisson is simply wide of the mark.

At the time that Liverpool brought Van Dijk in during the January window in 2018, they were absolutely crying out for a top central defender. The Dutchman remedied that immediately and has never looked back.

Simultaneously, they were desperate to bring in a proper goalkeeper, too. The rest of the team looked close to being finished, but these two positions left them glaringly open and therefore unable to compete for the biggest trophies.

Van Dijk and Alisson fixed that for around £140m, and they’ve been at the top of the game ever since.

You can see what Arsenal are thinking. They need a big player to take them from being a good team to a great one. That’s fine, and probably true – but Rice isn’t it.

For starters, they already had a defensive midfielder who by and large was very good last season. Their primary issue was not in that position on the pitch. Rice may be an upgrade on Thomas Partey, but he’s not what Van Dijk was to Dejan Lovren, or Alisson to Loris Karius.

Instead, we think Arsenal could perhaps do with an out-and-out goal scorer. Get a striker who can convert the chances Gabriel Jesus misses and they might be onto something. For now though, we’ll remain on the sceptical side where Rice is concerned.