Clubs could try to ‘lowball’ West Ham United for Declan Rice if they get relegated
West Ham could be on the receiving end of “lowball” offers from rival clubs for Declan Rice if they are relegated according to Ben Jacobs.
Rice is expected to leave this summer with Arsenal and Chelsea seen as the front-runners for his signature, with the Hammers said to be holding out for a British record fee to let him leave.
But both clubs are unlikely to want to pay that much to sign the 24-year-old, and with West Ham battling against relegation currently if they are to go down it’s believed that those teams are likely to send much lower offers than anticipated.
“Price will also be a factor,” Jacobs said via Substack (27 March).
“Suitors are quietly confident of landing Rice for £75-80m, and could even lowball West Ham if they go down.”
Be strong
As it stands West Ham have all the leverage in negotiations, because Rice will still have two years to run on his contract this summer and we’re not in a position where we must sell.
But if we lose that Premier League status then we will also lose the leverage in negotiations and there will be quite literally zero chance of Rice sticking around.
Currently Rice is said to earn £62,000 per-week at the London Stadium, but he will easily earn more than double that elsewhere and we won’t be able to avoid that.
However, even if that is the case we will need to be strong in negotiations to ensure we get the absolute best deal possible for our best player because we all know what he’s worth and what he’s capable of.
Even with relegation his value doesn’t change to us and we’ll have to be strong enough and brave enough to hold firm until we get an acceptable bid.