‘Doable’: Arsenal genuinely thought they were going to make £170m double swoop this year – journalist

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Arsenal genuinely thought they would be able to sign both Declan Rice and Moises Caicedo this year.

Speaking on The Arsenal Beat Podcast, The Telegraph’s Sam Dean and The Standard’s Simon Collings have been discussing Arsenal’s interest in both players, and Dean shared an interesting insight into the Gunners’ pursuit of these two players.

According to the reporter, Arsenal’s initial plan was to sign Caicedo in January and then get Rice in the summer, a double swoop that the Gunners genuinely saw as financially viable.

Arsenal thought they could get Rice and Caicedo

Dean and Collings spoke about these two transfer targets.

“Do we think it’s Rice or Caicedo or is it Rice and Caicedo?” Collings was asked.

“I think in theory Arsenal could try to get both. I think Rice is the priority though. He would suit Arsenal in that he can play as a six or an eight. We saw with Caicedo in January that the fee won’t be less than £70m, if you’re looking at both him and Rice you’re looking at £160m or £170m. I can’t see them getting both but if I had to say one I think it would be Rice,” Collings said.

“The plan in January as far as I understand was to get Caicedo then and then to add Rice in the summer. At that point they wanted both. They thought it was financially doable to get both, but obviously it wasn’t doable because Caicedo wasn’t available for £70m. They got Jorginho and a spot in the squad was filled,” Sam Dean added.

Huge summer ahead

Reading between the lines here, it looks as though Arsenal may have a massive summer ahead of them.

Indeed, if they were eyeing up a double swoop that could’ve been worth around £170m this year, then there must be a sizeable warchest for Edu to work with this summer.

Whether or not the double deal for Caicedo and Rice can be done remains to be seen, but regardless, we could see home blockbuster transfers at Arsenal this summer.