David Moyes makes admission about Declan Rice transfer that Arsenal fans will love

David Moyes has admitted for the first time that West Ham miss Declan Rice - and fears they may have sold him on the CHEAP.

The Hammers have racked up 10 games without a clean sheet, suffering the latest blot on their copybook in the last 10 minutes in Freiburg on Thursday night.

Although the £105million England midfielder was subjected to pantomime villain treatment when he returned to the Taxpayers Stadium with Arsenal this season, Hammers boss Moyes believes Rice’s mopping-up was a critical ingredient.

And he now wishes the Eastenders had held out for £150million last summer - because Rice has looked a more accomplished player than others who have fetched nine-figure transfer fees.

The Hammers’ last shut-out was against Brighton on January 2, and Moyes - who had always prided himself on building teams with a strong defensive core - admitted: “It’s not nice. We work hard to make sure we’re defensively sound and I genuinely believe there’s no successful team that hasn’t got the best defence.

“Having that normally gives you a good chance of getting a result somewhere. At the moment we’re not as strong as we should be in some areas.

“We’ve hugely missed Declan Rice. I think Declan covered up a lot of things, was able to tidy things up and help us. He’s probably the best player in England at the moment, I would say.

“If you lose the best player in England out of your team, you’re going to be affected one way or the other - it doesn’t matter how good your signings have been and how well they’ve done. And by the way, a lot of things get talked about how much money we spend, but nobody talks about how much money we’ve taken in as well.

“Brighton have taken a lot of money in, but I think we’re probably right up there with the biggest