Arsenal has taken the first steps towards landing Declan Rice at the end of this season as they open talks with West Ham over his signature.
The Gunners have made Rice their number-one summer target as the Englishman nears the end of his time at the London Stadium.
West Ham knows they will be powerless to stop him from leaving them and are now prepared to offload the midfield star in the summer.
Football Transfers claims Arsenal and the Hammers have started talks over his transfer and both clubs hope to find an agreement as soon as possible.
Rice has several suitors already and it will be challenging for the Gunners to win the race for his signature, but they believe they can convince him to pick them.
Just Arsenal Opinion
Rice will be one of the finest players available on the market when the transfer window reopens.
If we are serious about our interest in the England international, we must insist on finding a quick agreement with West Ham for his signature.
If it gets to the summer before we become serious, we will likely miss out on his signature to another suitor who acted faster.
Hopefully, he will prefer to join us instead of the other sides looking to lure him away from London.
He’s a West Ham boy and we don’t really want to loan him out to anybody (because he’ll obviously be back someday). If he’s got to go somewhere though, would prefer it was a real club like Arsenal, rather than a plastic outfit like Man City or Chelsea. Sorry to say, having said that, I think it all depends on how serious Man City might be with their interest… Have a feeling that £80m plus Kalvin Phillips might get it over the line.
This is what happens and why Arsenal sometimes get beat. Once the opposition start to get over tough in their tackles with a few follow through and shoulder barges Ice hockey style, the Arsenal skeleton midgets get nervous and start to give the ball away because they don’t want to be kicked in possesion. What they Arsenal have done was to roller around in pain for 5 minutes and surround the referee each time they got fouled to put the ref under pressure to issue Brighton a yellow card, instead of relying on the ref to notice Brighton’s rough tactics with Arsenal just being scared and giving the ball away. Bad management and coaching by Arsenal to deal with opposition rough tactics. Arteta is to blame.