David Moyes told West Ham not to sell Rice for £100m | OneFootball

David Moyes has admitted he told West Ham United to hold out for £150m for Declan Rice, before Arsenal completed their £100m deal.

LONDON, ENGLAND: Declan Rice of Arsenal shows appreciation to the fans following the Premier League match between Arsenal FC and Aston Villa at Emirates Stadium on April 14, 2024. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Declan Rice put in another impressive display for England in their Euro 2024 opener against Serbia on Sunday night, breaking up a few attacks and keeping the team moving in possession as we’ve come to expect with Arsenal.

Rice has looked well worth Arsenal’s £100m investment so far, with the fans taking to singing ‘Declan Rice, we got him half price’ at games.

Former West Ham manager David Moyes hasn’t quite gone that far, but he suggested to talkSPORT this week that he wanted 50% more from Arsenal to let the midfielder leave.

England’s Declan Rice reacts at the end of the International friendly football match between England and Belgium at Wembley stadium, in London, on March 26, 2024. (Photo by GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images)

“I was telling West Ham to hold out for £150m and people were saying I was off my head,” Moyes said (via Tribal Football).

“But I think if you look at some of the players who have come around that price, Dec’s surpassed them and looks above them.

“There were things that maybe Declan wasn’t as good at (with West Ham) but I think he’s improved (at Arsenal).

“He hasn’t really surprised me but I do laugh because a couple of years ago people were saying, ‘you’ll never get £100m for Declan’. I was saying, ‘no, we’ll get £150m for him’.”

Arsenal’s Declan Rice celebrates after scoring the opening goal of the English Premier League football match between Arsenal and Brentford at the Emirates Stadium in London on March 9, 2024. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

‘Declan Rice, we got him a third off’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, but it’s mostly just nice to see a club-record signing living up to the billing.

So many of the world’s big-money transfers end up failing to reach the expectations they’ve set. That’s certainly not true of Rice so far, and as Moyes suggests, he actually seems to have improved since his move.