Today will become a huge day in Hammers history as one of our own becomes the most expensive player in British football!
For Declan Rice will reportedly undergo his Arsenal medical TODAY ahead of a club-record £105million move.
The midfielder, 24, is expected to finalise his switch from West Ham and become the most expensive British player in Prem history.
![Declan Rice is set to undergo a medical today [Friday]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/west-ham-uniteds-declan-rice-827864324-1.jpg)
Declan has allegedly flown back from holiday and is ready to make the move to north London with West Ham now in a position to make their first moves in the summer window.
With the payment structure now sorted we have reached the point where a home grown Hammer – in price terms anyway – is seen as the best player in the country.
His rise to this position has been quite astonishing and a tribute to the club’s academy which was – and is starting to again – be seen as one of the best in the country.
Rice’s transfer will also see the Gunners smash the £72m they paid Lille for Nicolas Pepe back in 2019.
And with the departure of Granit Xhaka has been tipped to replace the Swiss midfielder and take up a new role.
I’m not sure that losing our best players is to be celebrated. I’m old enough to remember Martin Peters leave when I was a kid – I was SO upset. Frank McAvennie and Tony Cottee were sold off not long after we’d had our best ever season. Where was our clubs’ ambition? Paul Ince moved on just after the relegation we suffered because Frank and Tony had gone!. Much later we saw the departure of our crown jewels – Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Glen Johnson, Jermain Defoe and Michael Carrick.
The fact that Declan Rice has chosen to leave West Ham to win trophies is very sad – and I don’t blame him.
West Ham are a famous old club that have developed some truly great players since the late 1950’s. The ones already mentioned left to satisfy their lofty ambitions. Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Trevor Brooking were highly respected heroes who didn’t. (Yes, I know that Moore and Hurst left, but it was at the end of their long West Ham and England careers).
I met Martin Peters some thirty years ago and asked him why he left West Ham. He told me that he left to win more trophies, but it didn’t work! Tony Cottee left for then champions Everton and played six seasons, winning nothing. I know he now regrets leaving.
When, or if West Ham become regular challengers for a Champions League place will this sad story end. If the former owners from the mid-60’s had been ambitious, West Ham would’ve surely been long mentioned in the same breath as Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United. Instead they were just happy to remain in the top division until relegation finally punished them in 1978.