“I don’t think he goes this window,” Rio Ferdinand on Declan Rice move to Chelsea

The ex-Man United defender thinks it's inevitable that Rice leaves West Ham in the summer.

He won't push for a move himself in January but will want to test himself at a higher level.

“I don’t think he goes this window,” Rio Ferdinand said on his FIVE YouTube channel about Chelsea target Declan Rice.

“I think he stays there [at West Ham] for the remainder of the season. I don’t think he’s the kind of kid who is going to push to leave right now.

“If it happens, it will be between the clubs. I don’t think he’s going to be the person that instigates it. I think he’s quite a laid-back kid in that sense, but he is a driven kid; he’s someone who wants to achieve, better himself and improves. He’s like a sponge, he asks questions when you speak to him: ‘What was it like in your time?’

“He reminds me of myself in that respect. He asks questions like, ‘What was he like, training with him?’, and he wants to know everything because he wants to better himself and you can’t fault a kid like that.

“Good luck to him. I think it’s inevitable he will go but I think – if I’m being realistic – he will go in the summer and I think it would be to Chelsea if he had his wish.”

Rice's move to Chelsea, indeed, appears to be a question of when rather than if, if the latest reports are to be believed.