It’s like you’re having a conversation with a figment of your imagination.

You keep trying to convince yourself that you’re talking with someone who has said repeatedly ‘Rice is an 8 not a 6’, so you keep trying to insist on how good Rice is as a 6, as if that’s news.

You also keep trying to pretend I’ve said something like, ‘Rice is the best possible left 8 for us,’ as though I’ve not directly addressed that.

I’ll try this again:

The difference between Rice and the three CMs you named is at most a matter of degree. All of them can play anywhere in our midfield. Rice is the best 6 of those four; Gundogan at his peak was probably the best 8. Rice is, however, the most underrated 8 of those four; he is closer to the others than you’re suggesting.

Despite your insistence on how good he is, you are selling him short-- which is why you keep vacillating between ‘Rice is not a quality 8’ or ‘Rice is really a 6 not an 8 at all’, ‘Rice can maybe play 8’, and ‘Rice is a good 8’.

We have two top quality 6s and one quality 8.

Dismissing Rice as an ‘8 with no quality’ is not reasonable. He is a very strong 8; he’s just not perhaps ideal in his attacking contributions, though he is both underrated in this respect and offers significant compensation.

We need two quality 8s and one quality 6.

No, we need more than one quality 6 in the squad; at the very least, to go back to your prior terms, we need at least one ‘top quality 6’ and one ‘quality 6’.

Even Rice found our 6 role so physically demanding that he needed to come off for back spasms.

If one or both of those 6s can also play very well in our 8 role(s), that is surely helpful for the squad.

We don’t need another Rice who can maybe play 8. We need a locatelli or barella or Gundo type

You just named three players who could play as 8s or 6s in our setup, to varying degrees.

I’m talking both and between.

In the short term, having both Thomas and Rice affords us not only excellent 6 depth, but the possibility of playing both together: that is, Rice as one of our pairs of advanced 8s, which Arteta clearly values.

In the moderate term – say, this season and next, maybe beyond – Rice will continue to evolve in our 6 role, and we will either A) continue to enjoy the benefits of Thomas as his contract runs down, B) give him a new deal, or C) wait for a perfect combination of what our Tier 1 reporting this past summer described as ‘a huge offer’ or ‘a significant proposal’, Thomas’ desire to leave (per Arteta and his agents, utterly absent), and the availability of a replacement.

We do not simply want ‘a left 8’. We need a player who can both replace Thomas in the squad, and, ideally, also play as an advanced 8-- that is, another played like Rice. We want that both for depth and for the option of playing bother. It’s possible that we could split that across two players – e.g. a more or less pure 6 like Lavia and a corresponding 8 – but that gets expensive, and splits those minutes as well.

Right now, we have a plethora of 8 options across from Ødegaard: Rice, Havertz, ESR, Vieira, Trossard. Just one of them can also play as a 6.

A true left 8 comfortable with high pass volume in every third. Preferred profile: a Gundogan type.

May I introduce one Declano Risotto, who Pep said he wanted after Gundogan left.