Manchester United To Deal 3 Players For Declan Rice, Report Says

Manchester United may have already come up with a huge transfer plan for a highly-regarded English Premier League star.

The current Manchester United squad is stacked with talented players, but the club seemed undecided about who to let go in the past transfer window. However, things may have changed a bit ahead of the summer as the Red Devils are now keen to offload three of their so-called “fringe” players.

Manchester United is willing to offer Jesse Lingard, Nemanja Matic and Phil Jones to West Ham United to get Declan Rice in return, 90min reported, citing unnamed sources.

According to the report, Red Devils manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has long been keeping tabs on Rice but decided not to launch a formal bid last summer with West Ham demanding around £70 million ($97.5 million) for the midfielder at the time. But now, Rice’s representatives have become open to the idea of entering a deal at a cut-down price of around £50 million ($70 million).

At the moment, Man United has put a combined £30 million ($42 million) price tag on Lingard, Matic and Jones and is also prepared to offer some money upfront as well to meet West Ham's asking price for Rice, the report added.

Rice has been on the radar of an array of big-name Premier League clubs, with the report stating that apart from Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea are also chasing the 22-year-old.

Among the players the Red Devils are expected to offer, West Ham is “likely” to be most interested in Lingard, who is already on loan with the Hammers.

Despite falling down the pecking order at Man United, Lingard has become resurgent at West Ham and has already made his mark in his loaning club, having scored three goals in his first four matches as a Hammer.

What’s even more interesting is that despite all the transfer rumors, Rice is already looking forward to having Lingard next season at West Ham.

“Jesse [Lingard] is a top player,” Rice recently told Talksport. “I knew this from when I played with him for England. He’s a ridiculously top, top player. You know when you’re playing with a top player, he takes the ball on the half-turn, takes the ball in tight areas, relieves the pressure on you.”

“When you give him the ball you know he’s going to do something with it, and obviously what comes with that is he’s got a great personality as well,” he added. “All the lads have really taken to him and I’m so happy we’ve got him here now at West Ham. Hopefully we can do that for much longer for next season as well!”