West Ham MUST spend the Declan Rice money wisely.. they need to learn from what happened after Rio Ferdinand was sold

ALRIGHT stop, collaborate and listen, when Rice is gone, it’s time for reinvention…

Outgoing West Ham captain Declan loves his retro theme tune based on the 1990 hit Ice Ice Baby.

But his impending exit to Arsenal, for what would be the biggest fee between two British clubs, could bring back old memories of when the Hammers had a problem and couldn’t solve it.

After Rio Ferdinand left West Ham for Leeds in November 2000 for a British record £18million, the Londoners wasted pretty much all of it and were relegated 2½ years later.

If the Hammers don’t spend the £100m-plus proceeds of selling Rice wisely, they might not even last that long.

Because, with all due respect to Ferdinand, they are losing much more on  this occasion.

The England defender’s departure did hit the Hammers hard.

Harry Redknapp’s side won their first two league games of the post-Ferdinand era to stand sixth in the Premier League.

But they recorded just four more victories for the rest of the season to finish in 15th.

That was partly down to how they used the proceeds of Ferdinand’s departure.

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Liverpool could hardly believe their luck when they persuaded West Ham to spend £2.5m on Cameroon defender Rigobert Song within days.

Trying their luck again, the Reds negotiated a £1.5m fee for Guinea striker Titi Camara a few weeks later.

In January, the Hammers laid out a further £800,000 on Norwegian centre-back Ragnvald Soma and £500,000 on Bulgarian forward Svetoslav Todorov.

Of the five players signed immediately after Ferdinand left, only Christian Dailly, a £1.75m arrival from Blackburn, would be considered a success.

He is certainly the only one that West Ham fans still sing about occasionally.

To be fair, having replaced Redknapp with Glenn Roeder, the Hammers finished seventh in 2001-02 after topping up the Ferdinand money with £11m from the sale of Frank Lampard, which they spent on David James, Don Hutchison and Tomas Repka.

But they were relegated just a year later, despite having a wealth of young talent including Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and Jermain Defoe.

West Ham are not the only club to have blown the cash from selling their best player.

Tottenham squandered a lot of the world-record £86m that Real Madrid paid for Gareth Bale in 2013.

Only Christian Eriksen was a big hit and all £26.4m striker Roberto Soldado did was miss.

A year later, Liverpool sold Luis Suarez to Barcelona for £75m and proceeded to spend more than half of it on Mario Balotelli and Lazar Markovic.

The Bale and Suarez examples are relevant to West Ham’s situation with Rice. Both were superstar players whom it would have been almost impossible to replace like for like.

Rice will leave a bigger hole than either of them and at a club with less margin for error than Liverpool or Spurs had.

As a box-to-box midfielder and captain, the England star was literally and spiritually the heart of the team, its leader and talisman.

And even with him in the side, the Hammers only just avoided relegation before he lifted the Europa Conference League trophy and ensured he would leave on a massive high.

Now Rice has gone, West Ham need to be cute in the transfer market —  especially if the big spending of last summer restricts how much of the Rice income they are actually able to commit.

They will not find in one player what they have lost.

It won’t be enough to try to swap in a cheap and cheerful ready meal for Michelin-starred Rice. West Ham need to source quality ingredients and blend them together into a new dish.

Hammers boss David Moyes deserves the chance to prove his masterchef credentials.

As Everton manager, Moyes saw Wayne Rooney leave for Manchester United on summer deadline day of 2004.

Yet the Toffees finished fourth in the Premier League the following May, thanks to canny signings like Tim Cahill — who had joined before Rooney left.

Moyes’ Everton finished in the top six four more times — and outside the top ten only once — in the years that followed before he himself moved to United in 2013.

But achieving something similar after Rice’s departure will be a huge challenge.

Al a bit strange

WHEN Danny Murphy claimed former Liverpool team-mate Steven Gerrard was going to Saudi Arabia to improve as a coach, the resulting laughter could have been heard in Riyadh.

According to sports intelligence firm Twenty First Group, the Saudi Pro League was rated the 53rd strongest league in the world before the recent recruitment drive — basically on the same level as League One.

The best SPL teams could compete at the top of the Championship, it was claimed, and they will be even better after the influx of star names.

Gerrard’s new employers Al-Ettifaq are not one of the four clubs getting a cash injection from the Public Investment Fund, the Saudi company that owns 80 per cent of Newcastle.

So in that sense, England legend Gerrard really will have to show his coaching chops if his team are to keep up with the others spending fortunes on overseas talent.

And if Gerrard really  IS doing it mainly for the money… then more  fool him.

Pour oil on Ashes

SUELLA BRAVERMAN, the Home Secretary, slammed Just Stop Oil protesters for “ruining” days at Wimbledon and the Second Test.

Firstly, no one’s day, spectator or participant, was ruined.

Secondly, what really ruins your day is having to leave your home in Africa because the land has been made barren by climate change.

Or to choose between heating and eating because successive UK governments have failed to tackle the environmental emergency.

Or to explain to your refugee child why that pretty Mickey Mouse mural in the detention centre has been painted over.

Thirdly, extreme problems call for extreme action. And if Ben Stokes and Co cannot conjure up a victory today, I may run on wearing a T-shirt that says “Just Stop Losing”.

Brit ain’t so bad…

WIMBLEDON is all about traditions, so it’s time for an old favourite: What is going wrong with British tennis?

With only Katie Boulter making it as far as the middle weekend in the singles, it feels like we still lag behind  other Grand Slam nations.

But as Andy Murray said, America, France and Australia would love to have produced a Slam champ in recent years like him or Emma Raducanu.

What does success look like? More top 100 players, which would mean more Brits playing in SW19 by right (11 of the 14  singles, including all six women, needed wildcards this year).

Generally, sustained achievement at elite level in sport is a product of a thriving grass-roots sector.

The Lawn Tennis Association recorded significant rises in adult and child participation in 2022. But turning that base into the next Murray or Raducanu — or Liam Broady — is far from straightforward.

Poch brings personality

 IT’S good to have Mauricio Pochettino back in the Prem.

When he was unveiled at Chelsea, the old charm was present and correct — even if his English seemed a little rusty.

The new Stamford Bridge regime needs all the good publicity it can get after a disastrous first year.

Personality goes a long way but it can only do so much so time will tell if Paris Saint-Germain will be the craziest place Poch has worked.

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