West Ham have accepted that Declan Rice will leave this summer after he turned down a new contract with improved terms last season.
It’s early days in the transfer market and West Ham don’t look like a club under pressure to sell their most prized asset. After all, Rice still has two years left on his contract and the Hammers have the option to trigger a further 12 months.
However, reports today suggest Man City have indicated that they are ready to rival Arsenal in the race for Rice.
Arsenal have yet to make an improved bid after having two offers rejected by West Ham, but City could offer a nine-figure sum and seal the deal.
According to The Times, West Ham are keen to generate an auction of Rice to raise his price and are also expecting Manchester United to enter the bidding race.
One report yesterday suggested that United could offer a player-plus-cash deal in exchange for Rice, while Sky Sports claim the Reds are still interested in signing the England international despite Financial Fair Play issues.
West Ham’s valuation is said to be £120 million.
Gary Jacob reports: “United would not be willing to pay as much as £100m but are willing to offer players in the deal, including Scott McTominay and Harry Maguire.”
Moving on either McTominay or Maguire and brining in Rice would be a good bit of business for United. Sadly, I would suspect he is City bound.
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The Arsenal management should have themselves blamed if they eventually lost Declan Rice to Manchester City which had joined the race. I want to see how Arsenal would survive this.