Manchester United reportedly look set to begin the process of trying to seal the transfer of West Ham star Declan Rice in the coming weeks.
The England international is one of the most exciting young players in world football at the moment, having become a star player for the Hammers in recent seasons and showing that he’s surely capable of playing for an elite club.
Man Utd could be joined by Chelsea in pursuing Rice in the summer, though the 22-year-old is expected to cost as much as £100million, according to the Sun.
The report adds that the Red Devils will lay the groundwork for a possible summer move in the next few weeks, so they could be set to move ahead of the likes of Chelsea in the race for his signature.
West Ham’s poor recent form means Champions League qualification will be more of an uphill struggle, and that seems to have buoyed United, according to the Sun.
Rice surely needs to be playing in Europe’s top club competition, but then one imagines Chelsea might be the more tempting destination.
United themselves are not actually guaranteed to be in the Champions League next season, with Arsenal’s recent improvement seeing them occupy fourth spot at present.
Chelsea also actually won the competition last season, so could be ideal for Rice to really fulfil his ambitions as a player, whilst also giving him that opportunity to put things right at the club that let him go as a youngster.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out, but the Sun do add that Ralf Rangnick seems keen on the potential Rice deal, so MUFC fans will hope that can swing things in their favour.
Must have missed West Ham saying Rice was for sale. Groundwork can we buy Rice-NO. End of groundwork.Usual Rice rubbish.same as 2 years ago.Load of drivel.Who do manure think they are > Need to cut the arrogance -thats why theyre so loved- and get real. Not what they were. Those days long gone.
Mojen is right. Man U, Man City and Chelsea have all apparently been ‘readying bids’ for Declan Rice for some time now. But the consistent noise from West Ham is he’s not for sale. So when are they going to get the message? And to talk about Man U being encouraged by a ‘slump’ in West Ham’s form – especially when they sit behind us in the table – is insulting and ridiculous. What all those clubs are trying to do (and Liverpool with Bowen) is to let their friends in the media make suggestions that they’re interested in players to see if that will unsettle them – hoping that might make the player agitate to leave and bring their price down. Not happening with Rice or Bowen. Time the arrogant ‘Big Four’ were investigated for their tapping up techniques. It’s getting to be very tedious.