Arsenal likely to submit bid for 'one of the best in the world' in June

Arsenal have been heavily linked with Declan Rice in recent months.

Indeed, Charles Watts has described the Gunners’ interest in the West Ham star as “the worst-kept secret”.

The Goal.com Arsenal correspondent has provided an update on the state of play involving the Gunners and Rice.

Watts, speaking on his YouTube channel, believes Arsenal will launch their first bid in just over two weeks’ time.

West Ham will be contesting the Europa Conference League final against Fiorentina on Wednesday 7 June.

Watts says Arsenal will be wary of doing anything that could “annoy the selling club” ahead of such a huge match.

The Gunners are doing the right thing by keeping the Hammers on side, added the Arsenal-leaning journalist.

“West Ham I’ve got a lot to play for still,” said Watts. “They’ve got the European competition.

“I’m pretty sure Arsenal will probably have that in their mind because they’re not going to want to anger West Ham.

“This is going to be a difficult deal to get done.

“The last thing you want to do is annoy the selling club and put yourself in a difficult situation when it comes to getting a deal done.

“Arsenal are being very wary of what’s happening at West Ham.

“They won’t want to mess things up and destabilize things before the European final.

“So I think we’ll have to wait until that’s out of the way before that first bid properly goes in.

“I think that’s a the right way for Arsenal to go because there are going to be other clubs involved.

“The last thing, as I said, you want to do is annoy the selling club.

“So you want to keep West Ham on side and keep any negotiations in a good place and not annoy anyone.”

Our view

There has been so much speculation linking Arsenal and Rice that there’s a lot of optimism that the Gunners can strike a deal.

At the same time, as Watts has said, the Gunners will probably keep any concrete approaches on ice for now.

The Hammers are going to be playing in arguably the biggest and most important game in their recent history.

In terms of preparation, everything has to be spot on. And so, Arsenal are definitely doing the right thing by letting them get on with it for now.

The summer transfer window goes on for months anyway. There’ll be plenty of time for bids, negotiations and the like.

Obviously there’ll be a lot of competition for ‘one of the best in the world‘. Nonetheless, Arsenal are going about it the right way.