Arsenal fans started to get nervous about the status of the deal to sign Declan Rice on Wednesday afternoon, in the wake of a report from Sky Sports News.
Sky claimed that West Ham United were becoming increasingly frustrated about the delay with the deal to sell Rice to Arsenal, supposedly caused by delays with paperwork on the Gunners’ end.
As far as West Ham are aware, Rice has already passed his Arsenal medical, but the contracts haven’t been signed yet.
The S*n then reported that West Ham are angry with the delay to the move, fearing they could miss out on key transfer targets as a result.
But West Ham insider ExWHUEmployee has spoken out to allay concerns, writing on Twitter that there’s no change in the Rice situation.
The player is expected to release a goodbye video to West Ham and be announced by Arsenal on either Friday or Saturday, before joining up with Mikel Arteta’s squad for the tour of the USA this weekend.
Football.London also report that Arsenal are hoping to announce the deal before the trip across the Atlantic.
Arsenal are currently in Germany ahead of Thursday night’s friendly against FC Nurnberg, but they’ll return to England before heading out to the USA on Sunday.
That stop in England will be the opportunity for the likes of Rice and Emile Smith Rowe to link up with the squad ahead of the tour.
It shouldn’t be particularly surprising that a deal of this size has led to some delays in formalising the transfer.
Arsenal and West Ham will both want to make sure all the details are exactly as they want them before signing on the dotted line.
As a reminder, this will be a club-record deal for Arsenal, with the Gunners agreeing to pay a guaranteed fee of £100m over 24 months and a potential additional £5m in add-ons.
Rice has also been on holiday in recent weeks, so there hasn’t been a significant benefit to getting the deal fully confirmed until now.
If the delays continued beyond this weekend, when Rice is meant to be back in training, then it becomes a real problem. Until then, it shouldn’t be anything to worry about.
