West Ham United receive more verbal offers for Declan Rice – Kaveh Solhekol
West Ham United have received “more verbal offers than have been reported” for Declan Rice, after they rejected a bid from Manchester City.
The Hammers have so far rejected two bids from Arsenal and one from treble-winners City for the captain as they look for a minimum of £100m to be paid in no more than two installments.
But while the transfer has been widely covered in the media, Sky Sports reporter Kaveh Solhekol reports that they have shunned more bids than have been publicly reported.
“West Ham more than happy to keep Declan Rice if their valuation is not met,” he wrote on his personal Twitter account (27 June).
“More verbal offers have been made than have been reported. Rice has a big say about where he goes but only at right price/deal for West Ham.”
Expected
When it comes to transfers of this level and nature, it’s very rare that the clubs aren’t in constant communication about it.
Arsenal and City have made formal offers, but Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Chelsea have also all been attributed with an interest in the skipper.
It’s likely that they made verbal offers to West Ham to gauge what the reaction would be if they formalised it, and it’s clear that the reaction wouldn’t have been positive.
Rice has earned the right to make a decision on where he wants to go but West Ham absolutely need to get the best deal possible for him and they have been very clear that they want £100m for him to allow him to leave with two years left on his deal.
If nobody pays up then he has stick around and continue in the Europa League for the Hammers, because we have no obligation to let him go cheap just because. To the teams interested, pay up or shut up.
In other West Ham news, the club have set an £11.1m asking price for one first-team player.