Henry Winter drops major new Declan Rice-West Ham United update live from Qatar
Henry Winter believes Declan Rice has deserved the chance to leave West Ham United for Champions League football after years of top class performances.
The West Ham skipper was on media duty for England at the World Cup on Thursday afternoon (1 December), and confirmed that he wants to play Champions League football and win trophies in the near future, with Fabrizio Romano claiming a transfer is expected in 2023.
That led to The Times journalist Winter taking to his own personal Twitter account (1 December) and bigging up the chance of a Rice exit, while claiming that he would “walk into most Champions League midfields”.
“Declan Rice has just been into the media centre here in Al-Wakrah and he’s spoken about many issues,” he said.
“About the camaraderie within the England side, about practicing penalties inevitably with Senegal up next in the first knockout match, and also he mentioned, he was asked about the Champions League and about his ambitions.
“Obviously there has been a lot of speculation about Rice’s future at West Ham United.
“There are so many teams who will want to sign Declan Rice. Ambitious, Champions League teams. He said, quite poignantly in a way, that he’s got so many friends here who are playing in the Champions League and he doesn’t want to get to the end of his career and look back and think that he hasn’t seized all the opportunities that could come his way in his career.
“So a player of his talent clearly needs to be in the Champions League. It will be a wrench, and emotional wrench for him to leave West Ham. He’s played 206 times for them, captains them, cares alot about them, but clearly the elite clubs are going to come knocking.
“Probably not in January, they’ll probably wait until the summer, but he would walk in to most Champions League midfields because he is that good.
“And he deserves this opportunity. I think if he handles his departure well, I don’t think West Ham fans will necessarily begrudge him this opportunity because he’s done so much for them and he probably could have gone earlier.”
Earned
It’s certainly fair to say that Rice has earned the opportunity to play at the highest level with his own individual performances, and there aren’t many West Ham fans who would frown if he got his move.
But from a West Ham perspective, the deal has to make absolute sense and since he is so important and so good we have to be ensuring that we get the absolute best price we can.
£100m+ is highly unlikely just because of his contract status and the fact that everyone knows he wants to leave, but we have to do what is right for the club.
When he does eventually go, it’ll be to one of the biggest and best clubs in the world and he will play on a regular basis at the very highest level, and we can be proud that we’ve been part of his journey.
But unless we can elevate our game and become that club ourselves, we’ve got no hopes of him fulfilling those dreams here and it makes sense for all that he moves on in the summer should we receive a monster offer.