Ex-Prem coach thinks he could have signed ‘unbelievable’ Arsenal ace for £65m

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Former Chelsea coach Jody Morris admits Declan Rice was keen to join the Premier League giants in a potential £65 million deal long before Arsenal won the race for the former West Ham United captain. 

Where would Mauricio Pochettino’s side be, right now, if they had secured the signature of one Declan Rice during Frank Lampard’s first spell in the Stamford Bridge dugout?  

It’s certainly not hard to imagine that they’d be a lot better off, the England international now arguably the stand-out central midfielder in the division and the driving force behind another Arsenal title charge.

In stark contrast to Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez – who have shown only flashes of quality under Pochettino – Rice is exactly what a £100 million-plus signing should be. A transformative, grab-the-game-by-the-scruff-of-the-neck and lead by example addition to an Arsenal team who came oh-so close last term.

A team who could yet go one step further in 2024. 

Declan Rice making a huge impact at Arsenal

The Gunners’ gain, then, is most definitely a mid-table Chelsea’s loss, former assistant coach Morris admitting that Rice was keen on a return to the club he left as a 14-year-old junior before Lampard was replaced by Thomas Tuchel in 2021. 

“I was on at Lamps all the time going; ‘Dec would be unbelievable for us. We need more legs because (N’Golo) Kante hadn’t played a lot’,” Morris tells the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast. 

“About a month later, (Lampard) was like; ‘I’ve been all over Dec since we’ve been having a closer look’. I messaged Dec saying, ‘Would you come back?’. And he went, ‘I’m a Chelsea fan, of course I would’.

“So that got put in motion and Lamps started speaking to him. And it was on.

“The upstairs at the club were speaking to his dad and talking about a few things. It was pushed behind a couple of other signings and didn’t get through. I think at the time they were quoting around £60 – £65 million so that would’ve been an absolute snip.” 

A ‘fantastic’ addition to Mikel Arteta’s squad

Arsenal eventually invested a club-record £105 million fee in bringing Rice to the Northern corner of the English capital. He was, in the words of one former Liverpool midfielder, ‘fantastic’ during last week’s statement 3-1 win over Jurgen Klopp’s title rivals.