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Aluko on Man City’s bid for Arsenal target Rice

Eni Aluko has revealed her bizarre theory as to what is going on in the chase to sign Declan Rice – and says she used it all the time.

Manchester City have seen their £90million bid for the star REJECTED by West Ham.

In terms of structure, this had trumped Arsenal’s second club record offer of £75m plus £15m in add-ons – with the Gunners believed to be lining up a third bid.

Now former Lionesses footy star Aluko, who has worked as sporting director at American club Angel City and Aston Villa since quitting playing, has revealed that she believes that City have zero interest in Rice.

And, in fact, she told talkSPORT she believes the bid was all due to Pep Guardiola doing his former No.2 a favour – despite Arsenal being City’s nearest challengers to the Premier League title last term.

Aluko said: “There’s a lot of cat and mouse here and as a sporting director, I used to do this a lot.

“I used to call up a club and say ‘right, can you put a bid in’ and that would get my owner to basically put a higher bid in. It’s a bit like an auction.

“I don’t think that Manchester City actually want to sign Declan Rice. I think what is going on here is that Arteta has picked up the phone to Pep [Guardiola] and said ‘Arsenal are going to do the incremental bid approach, if you put a bid in, then that will push my owner’. I think there’s a bit of that going on here.”