Arsenal offered £105m for Declan Rice and made him the most expensive English player

A pitch-to-transfer battle between the top two clubs from last season’s Premier League will make Declan Rice the most expensive English player ever. Arsenal had to bid over £100m to win the young West Ham defensive midfielder over Manchester City.

The fact that in the near future Arsenal will close the deal to acquire 24-year-old Declan Rice from West Ham has been reported by all leading British media resources. Why it aroused great interest is understandable. It’s all about the value of the deal. Sources talking about her, such as the BBC and The Guardianagree that Arsenal agreed to pay a total of £105m for Rice, including bonuses, making him the most expensive English player ever.

So far, Jack Grealish, who was bought by Manchester City from Aston Villa two years ago for £100 million, is considered the record holder.

Declan Rice, despite his youth, is already a very famous and experienced football player with a rich track record. He has been playing for the England national team for a long time: at last year’s World Cup in Qatar (the English reached the quarterfinals there, losing to the French in it), he appeared in its starting lineup in all five matches, and at the end of this season he made a great contribution to the success of West Ham in the Conference League, the third European Cup. But it was Rice who turned into a super-expensive asset thanks to a battle in the transfer market between the two best clubs in the English championship.

As it turned out, the defensive midfielder, who performs a huge amount of work of a different nature – both defensive and attacking – work, was urgently needed by the champion Manchester City, who had been leading the championship for a long time, but in the end still let the favorite Arsenal pass ahead.

The Manchester team, apparently, wanted to replace Rice with Ilkay Gundogan, who had approximately the same functionality and played great last season: he decided to sign a contract with Barcelona in the status of a free agent.

Arsenal, on the other hand, simply decided to strengthen a squad that was not as deep and bright as that of Manchester City. The Guardian claims that coach Mikel Arteta saw Declan Rice as the perfect partner in central midfield for Kai Havertz, whose move from Chelsea is close to being finalized: Havertz will play closer to attack, Rice to defence.

It was Arsenal, as suggested by the BBC, who opened the race for Declan Rice. At the same time, entering into negotiations with West Ham, he took as a guideline the amount that Real Madrid cost another talented English midfielder who played for Borussia Dortmund, five years younger than Rice, Jude Bellingham. But it turned out that it was impossible to get Rice for £75 million, since Manchester City are also extremely interested in him. However, he still stopped at £90 million, allowing the London club to make a record transfer.

Alexey Dospekhov