Man City ‘don’t actually want Rice’ and are ‘helping Arsenal’ by making bid – talkSPORT pundit

TalkSPORT pundit Eni Aluko has made a bizarre claim that Manchester City’s recent bid for Declan Rice is actually designed to ‘help’ Arsenal sign him this summer.

The West Ham midfielder is one of the most sought-after players in Europe at the moment and the Gunners have already seen two bids rejected for him before making a third in recent hours.

It’s no secret that Mikel Arteta has made signing Rice his priority. But, Arsenal saw their second offer of £90m in total (£75m plus £15m in add-ons) rejected swiftly by the Hammers.

Then, Man City made their move. The treble-winners have tabled a bid of £90m, though structuring the deal more favourably for West Ham. Indeed, their offer comprised £80m plus £10m in add-ons. However, their bid was also rejected.

Guardiola is thought to be very keen on adding Rice to his squad this summer, especially after Ilkay Gundogan signed for Barcelona on a free transfer.

As a result, Rice’s destination will most likely come down to whichever team makes the highest bid for him – which is currently Arsenal’s new £105m package. Ideally, Rice would prefer to remain in London.

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Aluko: ‘Man City don’t actually want Rice’

However, despite Arsenal being Man City’s closest competitor for the Premier League title last season, Aluko thinks Guardiola is only bidding for Rice to help his old friend Arteta.

Speaking on talkSPORT, she said: “I think there’s a lot of cat and mouse going on here. As a sporting director, I used to do this a lot.

“I used to call up a club, a big club, and say, ‘right can you put a bid in’ and that would basically force my owner to put a higher bid in.

“I don’t think Manchester City actually want to sign Declan Rice, I think what’s going on is Arteta has picked up the phone to Pep [Guardiola] and said, ‘listen, Arsenal are going to do the incremental bid approach, if you put a higher bid in, that will push my owner.”

Then, asked why Arteta would try the trick, Aluko added: “For speed and to get the deal done.

“West Ham obviously want a certain valuation and I don’t know why Arsenal are taking this incremental approach.

“It says to me that Man City coming in later on is going to help Arsenal, because the fans are going to get on it now.

“The fans are going to say, ‘hold on, if you let Declan Rice go to Man City when he was our number one target, that says a lot about Arsenal’.

“I used to do it all the time and it used to work.”

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