West Ham players worried Declan Rice will quit after January transfer failure
West Ham players are worried about Declan Rice quitting the London Stadium in the summer after failing to sign anyone in January, according to The Telegraph.
The newspaper reports the Hammers are braced for summer bids for the 22-year-old midfielder after their fruitless January encouraged interested parties they may be able to prise him away from East London.
Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea are reportedly in the hunt to sign Rice, who’s already rejected two contract offers to extend his stay at West Ham.
The Telegraph adds that those clubs feel the Hammers may have squandered their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League this season due to their inactivity in January and “despite his affection for the club, Rice’s West Ham team-mates are concerned that the club’s star player will be tempted away by one of the country’s biggest clubs”.
Shocking
Whether it’s on David Moyes, David Sullivan or anyone else high up at the London Stadium, the failure to add to the squad in January was a shocker.
There are clear, clear holes in this squad and we have now gone three transfer windows without adding to our striker department.
As good as Michail Antonio is, his goalscoring run has dried up and he needs help in that area. And with Angelo Ogbonna injured for the rest of the season, it’s obvious that we needed a new centre-half.
We’ve heard a lot of stories about how Moyes was struggling to sign players in January and that he had money available.
But was that all misinformation put out there by the club’s top-brass in order to throw the manager under the bus? Or was Moyes being too picky for his own good?
There will have been players available, there’s no denying that.
Even if we struck short-term loan deals or contracts that lasted until the summer, it would have been a better shout than signing absolutely no one.
And now look at the aftermath, this could be Rice’s last few months as a West Ham United player and that’s simply not good enough.
In other West Ham news, Dharmesh Sheth spoke about Divock Origi and a possible move to the Irons on deadline day.