“A fantastic player”-Frank Leboeuf urges Chelsea to re-sign 24-year-old former Cobham talent

Frank Leboeuf urges Chelsea to sign West Ham United star Declan Rice

Frank Leboeuf has pushed Chelsea to sign West Ham United star Declan Rice in the upcoming summer transfer window. The Blues will not have it easy with several teams in the fray for the English international.

Rice was released from the Blues Academy as a teenager and eventually joined the West Ham youth setup. He progressed through the ranks at the Hammers, where he became one of Europe’s top defensive midfielders. The Blues are now looking to re-sign the 24-year-old to improve their defensive midfield options.

With Mauricio Pochettino set to come in, Chelsea could yet attack the summer transfer window with gusto. The club has an over-bloated squad and will need to first sell their fringe players before splashing the cash.

With N’Golo Kante’s contract expiring and Denis Zakaria set to return to Juventus after his loan spell, the Blues are in need of defensively good midfielders. We failed to replace Jorginho adequately last summer with Enzo Fernandez a better option in the number eight’s role.

And former Chelsea captain, Leboeuf has told the club to sign Rice, writing in his daily Chelsea column for Si & Dan Talk Chelsea. He believes the Englishman is who the Blues need.

“Chelsea must try to sign Declan Rice. People have the right to make mistakes, and Chelsea made a mistake when they got rid of him when he was younger. Rice is a fantastic player; he’s strong, clever, technically good, physically a monster, and tactically he can be very useful.”

“It would be a big change if Chelsea signed him because, for the first time in a long time, we would have someone very strong in the middle of the park.”

If acquiring him had been so simple, we would have done it already. He will also be incredibly costly, and we will compete with clubs like Arsenal, who are prepared to sign the 24-year-old regardless, for his services.

Additionally, we had little expectation that Rice would end up being one of the best midfielders in Europe. Re-signing him would help us address that mistake.

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Given that Arsenal will participate in the Champions League next season and we won’t, they now have an advantage in getting him. It will be quite difficult to spend another significant sum of money on another player next season since we also have wages to balance.