By Hughie Southon
West Ham have this morning confirmed that they are doing all they can to blow any bids for Declan Rice completely out of the water.
They have offered the captain a £200,000 deal with a clause to ensure that a rising scale is involved to match inflation.
And the deal will be for eight years as the board continues to do everything humanly possible to keep him at the London Stadium.
The news was given by Jim White on Talksport earlier and as is always the case we checked with our own sources at the club.
And we were immediately told that was indeed the case and that the club was doing all it could to effectively keep the player at the London Stadium for the remainder of his career.
The answer we were given was a simple “Yes” when we asked if the details as given by White were in fact correct.
They include the suggestion that the deal could go to 10 years which would make him the new Mr West Ham following the retirement of his huge mentor and friend Mark Noble.
White had said: “Declan Rice has been offered an eight-year deal at West Ham United worth £200,000 per week on a rising scale to match inflation. An eight year deal, worth £200,000 per week. At this stage he is showing no inclination to sign it.
“There is a belief that the eight-year deal could become a ten-year deal, if Declan and his people wanted such a deal worth £200,000 per week.
“So would they sell? There’s a belief within the Declan Rice camp that he could get between £300-400,000 per week elsewhere, whether that’s true or not remains to be seen.”
Why would a football club offer a 8-10-year deal to any player, given the high risk of injury?! Why would Declan accept a £200k per week deal when it’s being reported that Haaland will get £400k per week at Man City?! According to the BBC Sport website report on the Haaland deal, De Bruyne is already on £400k per week at Man City. So, £200k per week will make even less sense to Declan’s advisers. West Ham may very well have offered £200k, but it doesn’t make any sense to do so over such a long period of time, and even less sense for Declan to accept it. I’d much rather see him leave in Summer 2023 with lots of goodwill on both sides, West Ham getting around £100m in cash to reinvest in a currently-small squad and the option of an open door for a return of the player to West Ham later in his career, rather than the Club getting tied into the burden of an extraordinarily long contract. Pre-Kretzinsky, the irrationality of the offer, and the breaking of the news via Jim White, would suggest all of the hallmarks of David Sullivan-type transfer market nonsense.
So what would you do bud/ Kinda suggests we have no options
Buy the appropriate players to play along side him and he’d probably sign it.
His father is the problem
There are no easy options, Hugh. As mentioned in my first comment, I’d take £100m if another club offered it, and rebuild, rather than get sucked into an £80m-odd commitment to one player over either 8 years at 200k per week or 4 years at Haaland’s £400k per week. Even with Kretzinsky on board, feels to me that the fundamentals of the Club haven’t changed: it needs to sell Rice to raise money to have a punt at building a reasonably-sized, competitive squad that has competition for places in it. Plus Rice has hinted that he wants to go next year. Why put a player that is very likely to go anyway on a higher wage in a vain attempt to keep him?
I think you have come to a conclusion which is a tad false mate. Kretinsky can offer very cheap loans as a club banker and clearly doesn’t want to invest in a club which has to sell its best player. They really dont need to sell him to buy which is why they are offering the big bucks. There’s also decent money coming in from Europe snd will presumably continue next season. We really need to end this GSB fixation and the club not changing, It has. No one has control per se.