Rice will need to wait until the Summer

A club insider has repeated that the club is comfortable to wait until the summer to sit down with Declan Rice and his agent to discuss his contract insisting time is on their side.

A senior club insider told Claret and Hugh via Email: “With options, Declan Rice has two and half years to go on his current contract, we will review at the end of the season. As a club, we remain over £100m in debt and will lose between £30m and £40m this season. We are in danger of breaching Football Fair play rules with those losses this year and in the future. We can’t just afford to give every player who wants a pay rise a rise. The first team squad of 25 players, excluding players away on loan, but including employers National Insurance, sign-on fees and appearance money, is now already over £110m a year”

Declan Rice is thought to remain on £3,000 per week basic with a £10,000 per appearance bonus but his representatives want £30,000 per week basic plus a bonus scheme of £20,000 per appearance plus other performance-related bonuses.