Danny Murphy and Simon Jordan suggest Declan Rice could force way out of West Ham United to sign for Chelsea
Simon Jordan believes Declan Rice could force his way out of West Ham to secure a move to Chelsea after N’Golo Kante’s latest injury troubles.
The French midfielder was ruled out for the next four months after undergoing hamstring surgery, ruling him out of the World Cup and throwing his future at Stamford Bridge into doubt with his contract set to expire in the summer.
But discussing the injury on talkSPORT [19 October, 11:28am] Danny Murphy suggested that they could let him leave and bring in Rice as his successor, with the England international willing to retire at Chelsea as that’s his boyhood club.
“He’s been phenomenal,” he said. “We’ve eulogised over him many times and I feel bad for him missing the World Cup because of an injury, that’s bad news for him.
“But there’s a simple solution for Chelsea moving forward and looking to the future, which is, you’ve got arguably the best, one of the best holding players in the Premier League, who is English too in Declan Rice.
“He loves Chelsea. He’s the one to take his role, he’s capable. And he’d be with them for the rest of his career. It’s his boyhood club, he wants to go there.
“They’d have to bite the bullet but pay what it is, whatever it is. That’s the solution to replace Kante for Chelsea, yeah.
“It wouldn’t be £200m. £200m? They’re not stupid.”
Simon Jordan then chimed in with his belief too, suggesting Rice could force his way out if West Ham play games with his asking price.
“The chances are that he [Kante] will be going on a free transfer, and Chelsea will be bringing someone in, like Declan Rice.
“West Ham can say what they want, they’re not going to get £200m for Declan Rice. And if Declan Rice wants to step up, he’s not stepped up currently, neither should he have to and neither should he want to, but if he comes to the table and says actually I’m ready to go, then there will be a different discussion being had about what West Ham think they can demand in the market place, and what someone will pay.
“But if the player says, ‘I’m really wanting to go here and I’m prepared to put a transfer request in and I’m prepared to go public,’ then the price tag will start to centralise or recalibrate to a level that might be achievable.”
Here we go again
Until the day Declan Rice leaves West Ham United, he is our player and all this talk of him playing elsewhere is deeply disrespectful.
Plenty of clubs have wanted him over the last few years and yet here he is, wearing the captain’s armband in claret and blue.
Most fans are aware of the inevitability of his exit, likely in the summer, and the fact that Chelsea would probably be his preferred destination, but constantly bringing it up while he is looking to prepare for games and West Ham are looking to compete is just wrong.
There is no need for this constant need to talk about his future and essentially sell him to other clubs for no reason other than clicks and engagement.
He’ll go when someone pays his price that we set, or when his contract expires, and not a moment before. TalkSPORT should leave it alone until something actually happens that is concrete.