‘Just a heads up’: Journalist says Arsenal’s move for Kai Havertz does not affect the Rice deal

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The deals to sign Kai Havertz and Declan Rice this summer at Arsenal are not linked at all.

That is according to Tom Canton who was speaking on his YouTube channel about some of the backlash towards Edu in recent days.

Edu has come under some criticism from Arsenal fans for his failure to get the Rice deal done so far, and many have pointed towards the fee being paid to sign Kai Havertz and wondering why the Gunners are spending so much on the German and subsequently lowballing West Ham for Rice.

According to Canton, these two deals are not linked at all, and while from the outside looking in that is a logical belief to have, Canton’s understanding is that Havertz’s move does not affect the Rice deal and vice versa.

Not linked

Canton shared what he knows about the ‘talented’ player and the deal to bring him to Arsenal.

“What would you have liked Edu do differently in this? And they said that they want him to negotiate difficult deals, meet the requirements for once and we shouldn’t have bought Kai Havertz for such a large amount of money. To which I said, Kai doesn’t have anything to do with this deal, just a heads up, that is the case, the deal for Kai Havertz does not affect Arsenal’s move for Declan Rice to my understanding. It has no impact whatsoever,” Canton said.

Difficult to understand

From an outsider’s perspective, this may not make much sense. How does a £60m signing not affect your budget for other signings?

Well, this is quite difficult to understand, but footballing accounting isn’t always that straightforward.

Due to things such as player amortisation, internal valuations and structures of deals, transfer budgets aren’t quite as black and white as some would have you believe.

Does the Havertz deal affect how much Arsenal can spend this summer? Of course it does, but by the sounds of it, the Gunners have a separate pot of cash stashed away to use on the Rice deal, and that isn’t being affected by this move for Havertz.