West Ham have tonight have admitted they are in the dark over the completion of the Declan Rice deal.
Reports from Sky Sports have said the delay is down to Arsenal lawyers, but club insiders are at a loss to know what is happening after days of delays.
Asking a senior club source this evening about the Sky claims, the response came back to 6foot2 “The Rice contract is supposed to be with their lawyers, but WHO KNOWS what is going on?”
A £105m deal was agreed in principle over a week ago, with the player flying back from Dubai to complete a medical over the weekend.
Arsenal have agreed to pay a transfer fee of £100m in three equal payments with £33.3m up front on completion, £33.3m in 12 months’ time and the remaining £33.3m in 24 months.
Meanwhile, Declan Rice is in the Algarve with a fitness coach waiting patiently for the deal between the two clubs to be signed and sealed.
So the deal was not as sweet as initially thought. I heard it was £75M up front and the rest over 24months. I guess Sullivan did the best he could…….
The long delay wont have lowered expectations over there but more pertinent is the idea that playing to his strengths forced us to set up more defensively than we should have.
As a DM he was undoubtedly the top performer but how
much of him being the best player in the side was a result of us willingly conceding possession, thus allowing his strengths to come to the fore ?
Its agreed there is no direct replacement available so it would follow the approach will have to change, would better results and more possession this season prove his best actually placed restrictions on others and or our ability to retain the ball higher up the field?