Aluko suspects foul play in Man City's Rice approach

Stuart Telford

• Updated: 29 Jun 2023 13:11 BST
• 3 min read

Manchester City's interest in Arsenal target Declan Rice isn't legitimate according to former England winger Eni Aluko.

Rice is one of Mikel Arteta's top transfer targets at the Gunners this summer with Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey bound for the Emirates exit, for Bayer Leverkusen and Juventus respectively.

Arsenal have seen a bid of £75 million plus add-ons of £15m turned down by West Ham for their England midfielder, but Man City have also entered the fray, offering £80m up front plus £10m - which was also rejected.

READ: EXCLUSIVE: Declan Rice still set to join Arsenal despite Man City interest

Rice's path to first-team football would appear to be blocked at the Etihad with Rodri one of the team captains and John Stones living up to his nickname of 'The Barnsley Beckenbauer' towards the end of last season, and Aluko is suspicious.

'Cat and mouse'

"I think there's a lot of cat and mouse going on here," she told talkSPORT. "As a sporting director [for Angel City and Aston Villa] I used to do this a lot where I'd call up a big club and say: 'can you put a bid in?' - and that would get 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 here is Mikel Arteta has picked up the phone to Pep and said 'listen, Arsenal are going to do the incremental bid approach. If you put a higher bid in that will push my owner.'"

READ: The proof that Arsenal and Man City are massively OVERPAYING for Declan Rice

As cynical as that might be, City appeared to do Arsenal a favour last summer in selling Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko to the Gunners for a combined £77m. Arteta's side subsequently led the Premier League for 248 days before finishing second, five points behind City.

Aluko also claimed that West Ham were holding for £120m for Rice. He is valued at €62.5m (£53.8m) by FootballTransfers' in-house algorithm.