It won’t be long before the Chelsea for Rice stories start gathering pace as January approaches.

In fact, already I have been reading with monotonous regularity that Lampard wants to sell a couple to get the funds for a bid – strange given there has been no effort or even and enquiry so far.

Look, I’m not fallible enough to believe that if he came in with a bid of £80 – £90 million the temptation would be great to sell and could happen.

And that’s how much it would cost minimum because when the £70 million price tag that was placed on him a year was at a time when he wasn’t the player he is now with regular international football behind him and our captaincy.

Is it going to happen in January?  NO, because Declan can see something very big developing at West Ham and as the current regular stand-in skipper wants to be part of a possible Euro charge next season.

His former boss Terry Westley is convinced that will be enough to keep him at the club and I don’t believe he will walk away as the man currently leading the charge and whom our hopes are pinned.

Should we make it into the elite Euro scenario he will want to be part of that and I can’t see him going anywhere for a while anyway.

As Terry said: “He’s so West Ham – he loves this club.”