Declan Rice 'wanted to join Chelsea' before completing £100m Arsenal transfer
Former Chelsea assistant Jody Morris has revealed Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice was keen on a return to Stamford Bridge during Frank Lampard's first stint as manager.
Rice joined Chelsea's academy as a youngster before being released at the age of 14 and snapped up by West Ham. Just four years later, he made his first-team debut for the Hammers aged 18 and went on to become a crucial player for the club.
He was appointed captain in 2022 after Mark Noble's retirement and led West Ham to their first European trophy since 1965 when they won the Europa Conference League in 2023. Rice then made a bumper £100million move to Arsenal, where he has played a key role in the Gunners' Premier League title bid this season.
However, things could have been very different if Morris and Lampard had got their way, with Rice apparently very keen on joining Chelsea when they were in charge. "I messaged Declan Rice when I was at Chelsea, and I asked him whether he'd come back, even after being released by the club," Morris said in an appearance on William Hill's No Tippy Tappy Football podcast.
"He was a centre-half back then and there were a lot of people who said he shouldn't have been released when he was, but in hindsight it was probably the best thing for him considering all the amazing things he went on to do at West Ham.
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"I was always on Frank Lampard's case saying how unbelievable Rice would be for us when N'Golo Kante kept getting injured and he wasn't sure at first, but a month later he was all over him!
"So, we reached out to Declan on whether he'd want to come back and he said, 'I'm a Chelsea fan, of course I would!', and from then on Lampard was speaking to him and the upstairs members at the club were talking to his parents. In the end it got put on the backburner in favour of a couple of other signings.
Frank Lampard and Jody Morris wanted to sign Rice when they were at Chelsea and the player was keen on a return to Stamford Bridge (Richard Calver/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)"It didn't end up going through, but at the time they were quoting around £60-65 million so that would've been a steal for someone who could have easily been at the club for 10 years. For me, Rice is top-drawer and I'm so excited about the England midfield we have at the minute.
"Rice has shown his worth in an England shirt and for West Ham and now at Arsenal with a better team and he's performing week in week out." Lampard has previously spoken about his attempts to sign the midfielder, telling the Diary of a CEO podcast last year he felt Rice would have gone on to captain Chelsea for the next decade had he joined.
"When I was at Chelsea before, I wanted to bring in Declan Rice," Lampard revealed. "I said he would be the captain of Chelsea for the next 10 years. It didn't happen, but it's hard for me to dissect other people's work between when I left the club and came back."
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