West Ham midfielder Declan Rice has admitted that he wants to remain 'close' to London amid summer transfer links to Chelsea and Man United.
Rice, 23, has been speaking to Gary Neville this week in his 41 questions feature for Sky Sports - a video that has hyped up Blues supporters on social media.
Firstly, his phone call admission about John Terry was enough for Chelsea fans to demand a return for a player they let go in his youth days and that mistake has certainly haunted Marina Granovskaia and co for a large number of years.
Whilst talking about his love for West Ham, Rice explored Kingston-upon-Thames in south-west London alongside Neville, a place where the midfielder grew up.
When talking about his roots and living in the capital city, Rice dropped a sly transfer hint that will further ensure that the European Champions have a slight advantage over their strongest competition for the player in question - coming in the form of Ralf Rangnick's Manchester United.
"Do you still have a house round here?" Asked Neville on the Overlap Extra.
"Yeah, I'm here all the time," admitted Rice, who thanked the former United full-back on his social media for letting him be part of the show. "I've always wanted to stay close to this place, I feel like I don't want to lose my roots."
An admission that seemingly makes it advantage Chelsea over Man United in that sense but Granovskaia still has to clear the hurdle of dealing with the West Ham board, who have a reputation of being tough to negotiate with.
football.london understand that as far as the Hammers are concerned, nothing has changed and Rice is not for sale at any price and the club has no interest in letting their key man leave the club at any cost.
Rice is contracted to the club until 2024, with West Ham holding a further one-year option to extend his deal until the summer of 2025. With Rice tied down to a long-term deal, West Ham are adamant the England international is going nowhere despite the interest from other clubs.
However, the Blues will not let this position deter their summer pursuit of the Hammers' number 41 who is seen as a top priority alongside Monaco's Aurelien Tchouameni in Thomas Tuchel's rebuild of an ageing midfield.
football.london understands that Chelsea are long-term admirers of Rice, who was released as a teenager at Cobham.
Interest that was confirmed by football.london's Adam Newson when speaking about Jules Kounde, Aurelien Tchouameni and Rice.
"That’s a very hard question. I would probably think it would be Jules Kounde, largely because he’s the most recent of the sort of harder interest that Chelsea have had in players. So, Declan arises, we know and goes back a long way," he said on Carefree Chelsea's Youtube show.
"Frank Lampard wanted him, and the club wasn’t as willing to accommodate that because of his history at Chelsea. Being released at 14 and then the optics of re-signing a guy you released necessarily isn’t great.
“But, you look at his emergence now and continued development. It’s harder and harder to make a case for why you shouldn’t go for him."
The 23-year-old is expected to cost more than £100million, with his current manager David Moyes sending a stern warning to all interested parties.
Moyes said: "There was a bargain to be got with Declan at £100million. That bargain has now gone.
"We have a lot of really good players at this football club and I think while you're building and developing I think people might always come and look at your players.
"But it is good that they are because that is telling us that they're doing well."
Rangnick and co at Old Trafford may have to look elsewhere at other targets like Marseille's Boubacar Kamara whilst the west Londoners will be more than encouraged by Rice's latest admission.
