Declan Rice PA Images/Alamy Images

New club emerges as potential favourite to land Declan Rice in £100m+ deal

Originally posted on Caught Offside | By Jason Pettigrove | Last updated 6/14/23

It’s no secret that Declan Rice will be moving on from West Ham United this summer.

Club chairman, David Sullivan, admitted as much during a live talkSPORT interview (h/t talkSPORT.com), and the only real question to be answered is where he will end up.

Evidently, the Hammers talisman’s last act as a player for the club was to lift the Europa Conference League trophy to the heavens, surely marking him down as one of the best players in West Ham’s recent history.

Whilst there’ll clearly be a tinge of sadness from supporters of the club at seeing one of their own move to pastures new, they’ll arguably wish him well given what a sterling job he did for the club.

He always appeared to lead from the front and by example, and if the team didn’t win, it wasn’t for the want of trying from Rice.

The expectation for a while has been that the midfielder will sign for London rivals, Arsenal, and TeamTalk do note that a move is close, albeit they haven’t yet agreed on a fee.

All the while those negotiations carry on it offers hope to any other interested parties that there may be an opportunity to make an 11th hour bid and snatch Rice from under Arsenal’s noses.

The outlet suggest that Chelsea would likely go beyond the £100m for the player’s services, and that could make them a potential favourite given that such a price is more likely to appeal to West Ham than the £92m reported by The Telegraph (subscription required) that the Gunners apparently want to pay.

This article first appeared on Caught Offside and was syndicated with permission.

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