Bruno Guimarães and Declan Rice have already earned a bold endorsement

Former striker Jay Bothroyd claims that he wouldn't trade the midfield pairing of Bruno Guimarães and Declan Rice for any other pairing in the Premier League.

Guimarães is due to join Arsenal imminently, with a deal having been struck with Newcastle for around £75 million for the Brazilian earlier this week, according to widespread reports.

Journalists like David Ornstein and Fabrizio Romano have also confirmed that the player will be arriving at the Emirates Stadium sooner rather than later.

This signing has now created a new starting midfield for Mikel Arteta's Arsenal.

Declan Rice and Bruno Guimarães will presumably sit right behind Martin Ødegaard in Arsenal's midfield, which makes it one of the most formidable partnerships in all of Europe.

Bothroyd believes that, from a physical standpoint and from an experience standpoint, there is no other midfield pairing in the Premier League that he would take over this duo.

He said: "I do believe that with Rice and Guimarães, I feel like they, of all of those, I would probably say as athletes as well as football players, they would be the best partnership in terms of fitness, physicality, both boxes.

"I think tactically, Rodri and Elliot Anderson might be better, but I think definitely for the way Arsenal play, I won’t swap that pairing for any of the others."

For the way Arsenal play, there is no better midfield pairing

Obviously, there is the case of Rodri and Elliott Anderson, while Moisés Caicedo and Enzo Fernández are also up there. But in terms of being athletes, I do agree that there are very few better midfield pairings in the Premier League.

They are always fit, they work their socks off in every single game, they love crashing the box and then tracking back to defend their own. They are also rarely injured, which I'm hoping does not curse either of those players.

Bruno Guimarães has also always shown the mentality of a top player whenever he plays in the biggest games against teams like Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester City. Rice is exactly the same, performing in every big game that he plays for Arsenal and England.

Obviously, technically, there will be better players in the league than these two combined, but having such physically dominant midfielders can only help Arsenal defend well and attack their opponents with the ball.

It remains to be seen how Guimarães plays under Arteta, whether it's going to be as a holding midfielder or as a box-to-box player alongside Rice.

Either way, it will really help Arsenal because at least one of Martin Ødegaard and Declan Rice will be free to get forward and be as creative as they want to be with the ball.

Whenever Guimarães wants to do that, Rice will always be there to slot back in for him, which is why this is such a dynamic and versatile midfield.

Arteta has so many options with the arrival of Bruno Guimarães, and it will be very interesting to see how he uses them over the course of the season.

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