But a lot has changed since then. When we signed Ozil and Sanchez, we were a regular Champions League club, with the 3rd largest wage bill, a squad of good players and Wenger still had credit in the bank as a top manager. And when we signed Aubameyang, that was only our 1st year out of CL, so we still had credibility with top players across Europe.
Currently, we've been out of the Champions League for 5 years, with back-to-back 8th placed finishes, and have a rookie manager in charge. Our wage bill has gone down, too, which has undoubtedly been impacted by the lack of CL/European football, in addition to forcing high earners to leave.
Haaland is going to have the pick of who he wants. Man City, PSG, Juventus, Man United, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and even Barcelona are all ahead of us in the pecking order. With the exception of Barcelona (currently), these clubs can offer better financial packages than us.
Vlahovic rejected us because we're not an attractive enough proposition for him - and this was when he only had 1.5 good seasons. There's no logical reason for Haaland's representatives to even entertain an offer from us when he has a better opportunity to win trophies and earn good money at the aforementioned clubs.
Again, Man United, Man City and Chelsea are all strongly linked with Rice - each of those clubs are richer than us and can offer more than we can. None of these transfers are 'impossible', but their likelihood is extremely slim, especially in the case of Haaland who is the hottest property in Europe.
We will probably be looking at players the tier or two below this lot e.g. Isak, David, Osimhen etc.