Irons staying strong as Rice saga draws to close

By Hugh Southon

West Ham have made it crystal clear they have no plan whatsoever to sell Declan Rice to Chelsea via a low or high ball offer before October 5.

Chelsea did little to stop leaks that manager Frank Lampard may be set to come in with a bid of around £40m – £50 million for Declan – a story repeated throughout yesterday and today in various media outlets.

But the Hammers have made it clear throughout the summer-long saga and again today that the England defensive midfielder is going nowhere in this window,

The £70m -£80m valuation is unshakeable but even were the Blues ready to meet it, the club knows it cannot replace their main man with a player of anything near the same quality as Dec before October 5.

Indeed they understand that players of that calibre – even if the cash were available – would only be attracted to the top six clubs anyway.

And with Declan and Tomas Soucek forming a magnificent partnership at the heart of the Hammers midfield there is absolutely no chance of the club letting him go.

The determination is to reach a top ten or eight position by Christmas and push on with hopes of a big finish and hope they can keep their crown jewel.

That’s unlikely and the obvious conclusion is that we will probably get another season of Declan before he moves on to that fee of close to £100 million as Hammers captain and fully-fledged England international.