Declan Rice: ‘I wouldn’t sell him for £100 million’, claims West Ham coach

West Ham assistant coach Kevin Nolan has warned suitors that a bid of £100 million would not be sufficient to take Declan Rice from the club.

The midfielder has continued to be linked with a move to a number of the Premier League’s biggest clubs, including Chelsea and Manchester United.

After an impressive start to the season in east London, Nolan has suggested that Rice is only going to get better and that any transfer fee would need to be significant.

“When you watch him play, he just seems in control of everything,” said Nolan on the BBC’s Football Daily podcast.

“For me, he’s going to get better. Putting a price tag on him, I wouldn’t sell him for £100m.”

Rice was in the Chelsea academy as a youngster but was released at 14, joining West Ham.

He has often been linked with a return to his boyhood club, where he could reunite with close friend Mason Mount.

However Rice is also reportedly seen as a potential answer to Manchester United’s defensive midfield problems, where he is perceived to be a potentially ideal foil to Paul Pogba.

Nolan, who has worked closely with Rice since joining David Moyes’ coaching staff in February 2020, believes that he has “everything you could wish for” in a footballer.

“The biggest thing for me as a coach is he listens to me, he respects me for what I’ve done, but I feel that this lad can go on and I feel he’s already done more than I have in terms of England appearances, being in Europe and things like that,” explained Nolan.

“He’s going to keep going because [of] his athleticism. He trains every day, he wants to train every day, he can hit it from one side of the pitch [to the other] with his right foot or his left foot.

“He can run with the ball, he’s got everything that you could possibly wish for as a footballer and plus he’s got a good footballing brain where he’s now learning for West Ham, and he’s done it with England, he’s now learning how to control games.”

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