Manchester City don’t really want Declan Rice and have only bid £90million for the West Ham star as a favour to Arsenal, according to Eni Aluko.
Rice is at the centre of a bidding war between Arsenal and Man City, with the 24-year-old midfielder expected to leave West Ham this summer. The Hammers have turned down three offers so far – two from the Gunners and one from City – and are holding out for their valuation of £100m.
Mikel Arteta is determined to land Rice, who is his number one transfer target, and Arsenal plan to return with further offers after seeing their latest bid worth £90m – made up of £75m plus add-ons – rejected. City’s rejected offer was a deal of £80m plus £10m in add-ons – and it is this bid which former Lionesses forward Aluko has a theory about.
“There’s a lot of cat and mouse here and as a sporting director, I used to do this a lot,” Aluko said on talkSPORT. “I used to call up a club and say ‘right, can you put a bid in’ and that would get my owner to basically put a higher bid in. It’s a bit like an auction.
“I don’t think that Manchester City actually want to sign Declan Rice. I think what is going on here is that Arteta has picked up the phone to Pep [Guardiola] and said ‘Arsenal are going to do the incremental bid approach, if you put a bid in, then that will push my owner’. I think there’s a bit of that going on here.”
Aluko added: “I don’t know why Arsenal are doing this incremental approach but it says to me, Man City coming in later on, it feels like that it is going to help Arsenal.
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“The fans are going to get on it now and say ‘hold on a second, if you let Declan Rice go to Man City when he was our number one target, then that says a lot about Arsenal. So I think there is a bit of that going on. I used to do it all the time and it used to work.”
Rice is understood to prefer a move to Arsenal, which would mean he doesn’t have to uproot his current life in London. Following an impressive 2022/23 season, Arteta has sold his vision to Rice, who is now waiting for the bidding war to play out.
West Ham are fully expecting Rice to leave in the summer transfer window, but are ready to play the long game. Manager David Moyes has made it clear the club want at least £100m for their star player, who helped them win the Europa Conference League last season.
Arsenal are expecting Granit Xhaka to leave for Bayer Leverkusen, while Thomas Partey is being courted by Juventus. Rice would become the focal point of the midfield, with Kai Havertz poised to join in a £65m move from Chelsea and Ajax defender Jurrien Timber another target.
