Arsenal to make quick bid for 24-year-old in attempt to stop Newcastle from signing him

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Arsenal aren’t going to be wasting any time getting their bid in for West Ham’s Declan Rice in an attempt to seal the deal before Newcastle United.

Today, West Ham chairman David Sullivan confirmed that Declan Rice had played his last game for the club and suggested that now that their season has ended, they will start listening to offers and The Guardian claim that Arsenal will be poised and ready.

Speaking to TalkSPORT, Sullivan said: “I think the offers will start to come today. Three or four clubs have shown interest but, out of respect to West Ham, while we’re still playing, you don’t make offers for players.”

Rice turned down £200k-a-week to stay at West Ham

Sullivan said that Rice turned down a £200,000-a-week offer from The Hammers so he knew that his mind was made up.

Now that West Ham have played their final game emerging victorious in the Europa Conference League final last night, Arsenal are ready to pull the trigger on a bid in order to head off the competition.

One club said to be keen on Rice and a possible threat to Arsenal’s plan is Newcastle who have been linked with a move for the 24-year-old England international.

Whether the interest in genuine or just one of those stories that surface because we have money and Champions League football so it makes an easy story for journalists, only time will tell.

However, if it is genuine, Arsenal will be focusing their efforts on making any potential move as difficult as possible by getting in there as fast as they can.

Realistically, as fantastic as Declan Rice is, I can’t see him coming to Newcastle. Bayern Munich were said to be keen to sign him too, but I can’t see beyond him going to Arsenal.

Arsenal are clear favourites to land Declan Rice ahead of Newcastle

The Gunners are set to let Granit Xhaka leave and will need a replacement and they don’t come much better than Rice. Then there’s the whole London of it all. I don’t usually buy into the whole argument that players would rather move to a lesser London side than Newcastle, but when it’s a player who has spent their life in London, it’s harder to pry them away – and of course, Arsenal aren’t exactly a ‘lesser’ side.

One issue that could go against Arsenal is that they only want to spend £90million on Rice while West Ham are hoping to break that £100million barrier, however I don’t think it will take much to come to an agreement that works for both parties.

I think as Newcastle fans we can chalk this one up as a dream signing that won’t happen. We have been linked with plenty other players that will get us excited and won’t cost anywhere near as much as Rice.