Declan Rice told me he would sign for Chelsea and this is why transfer never happened

Former Chelsea assistant manager Jody Morris has claimed that Declan Rice told him he would move to Stamford Bridge from West Ham had the opportunity come up.

Rice progressed through the Chelsea academy before being released at the age of 14. He would go on to join West Ham and spent 10 years at the club before signing for Arsenal in a £105 million deal last summer.

Before Rice left the London Stadium, there were plenty of rumours linking the England international with a return to Stamford Bridge. The speculation was arguably at its peak duringFrank Lampard's first stint as manager from 2019-21, where Morris worked as assistant manager.

Morris has revealed that he attempted to start the process of bringing Rice back to Chelsea during his time at the club. The former Blues assistant, who coached Rice during his time at the academy, went on to explain why a deal never got over the line.

“I messaged him [Rice] when we were there and said, 'Would you come back?' Because obviously, he was released from Chelsea as a 14-year-old," Morris said on the No Tippy Tappy Podcast. «If you actually spoke to Dec, I don’t think that he would have thought that he should have been released.

“It’s probably the best thing for him. He’s gone on to amazing things at West Ham. But while he was there, going into our second season [at Chelsea] I was on at Lamps [Lampard] all the time going, 'Dec would be unbelievable for us, we need more legs'.

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»Because [N’Golo] Kante hadn’t played for us a lot — he’d only played about 40 per cent of the time, he kept getting injured. And I said,