![\"Kai](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/185b63219788010c17814771393962c320e20452\/0_453_5294_3177\/master\/5294.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=b60e44a6a174bc3ad7ef2c600f49a4b2\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nPep Guardiola had identified Rice as a replacement for Ilkay G\u00fcndogan after the Germany midfielder\u2019s\u00a0move to Barcelonaon a free transfer. Insiders at West Ham had expected City to submit an improved offer for Rice on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
West Ham have been holding out for at least \u00a3100m and have used City\u2019s interest to drive up the price for their captain. The fee for the England international will top the\u00a0\u00a3100m City paid\u00a0to sign Jack Grealish from Aston Villa two years ago and make Rice the most expensive British player. Chelsea, Manchester United and Bayern Munich had also looked at signing Rice, but Arsenal have been at the front of the queue since Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arsenal had an offer of \u00a375m plus \u00a315m in add-ons rejected last week, with West Ham unhappy with the proposal to spread the guaranteed portion of the payment over five years. The size of Arsenal\u2019s offer is acceptable to West Ham, who used\u00a0Jude Bellingham\u2019s move to Real Madrid\u00a0on an initial \u00a388.5m as a guide during negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
City\u2019s bid had left\u00a0Arsenal\u00a0at risk of missing out on Mikel Arteta\u2019s top target. Yet the message from well-placed sources has constantly been that Rice wants to join Arsenal. The 24-year-old preferred to remain in London \u2013 he recently became a father and is very attached to his family \u2013 and finalising terms over a long-term deal with Arsenal will not be a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arteta has made clear to Rice where he will fit into his team and has plans to build his midfield around the player and\u00a0Kai Havertz, who has signed from Chelsea for \u00a365m. Havertz has played as a No 9 for Chelsea but will be used in a deeper role for Arsenal. Arteta is also close to sealing a \u00a350m deal for\u00a0the Ajax defender Jurri\u00ebn Timber\u00a0and wants the Southampton midfielder\u00a0Rom\u00e9o Lavia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arsenal are spending heavily as they look to mount another title challenge and could make space for Rice by selling Granit Xhaka to Bayer Leverkusen and Thomas Partey to Juventus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rice\u2019s final game for West Ham was the Europa Conference League final\u00a0win over Fiorentina\u00a0this month. West Ham have accepted his wish to leave and compete at a higher level. Rice joined after being released by Chelsea aged 14 and has become one of the best players in their history. Renowned for his ability as a defensive midfielder, Rice will hope to develop the attacking side to his game at Arsenal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
West Ham will look to replace Rice with two central midfielders \u2013 there is interest in\u00a0Fulham\u2019s Jo\u00e3o Palhinha, Juventus\u2019s Denis Zakaria, Everton\u2019s Amadou Onana and Southampton\u2019s James Ward-Prowse \u2013 and also want a centre-back. They will rival Newcastle, Aston Villa and Tottenham for the Leicester winger Harvey Barnes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal have finalised an agreement in principle with West Ham to sign Declan Rice for \u00a3105m after\u00a0Manchester City\u00a0pulled out of the race for the midfielder. Arsenal\u00a0made a third offer\u00a0of \u00a3100m plus \u00a35m in add-ons on Tuesday night and only minor issues relating to the structure of the deal remained to be completed on Wednesday evening. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":35512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[461,6409],"tags":[1351,285,2824,3757,1172,10805,5268,169,5110,9331,10319,1258,6777,306,5455,515,7619,66,9692,1966,10954,4761,800,492,7263,9676,301,3684,11252,501,115,10481,4807,4995,6831,6657,12187,8000,1717,10691,11973,12925,4082,13256,267,12103,6200,196,8045,5807,266,5470,1567,723,6218,3954,594],"class_list":["post-35511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-sports","tag-ajax","tag-arsenal","tag-aston-villa","tag-bayer-leverkusen","tag-bayern-munich","tag-bellingham","tag-british","tag-chelsea","tag-christmas","tag-city","tag-declan-rice","tag-england","tag-europa-conference-league","tag-everton","tag-family","tag-fiorentina","tag-fulham","tag-germany","tag-granit-xhaka","tag-guardiola","tag-international","tag-jack-grealish","tag-james-ward-prowse","tag-juventus","tag-kai","tag-kai-havertz","tag-leicester","tag-london","tag-manchester","tag-manchester-city","tag-manchester-united","tag-midfield","tag-mikel-arteta","tag-minor","tag-missing","tag-munich","tag-n","tag-negotiations","tag-newcastle","tag-onana","tag-one","tag-partey","tag-pep-guardiola","tag-players","tag-premier-league","tag-price","tag-race","tag-real-madrid","tag-rice","tag-risk","tag-southampton","tag-space","tag-thomas-partey","tag-tottenham","tag-west-ham","tag-will","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}