Declan Rice has been told to down tools and go on strike at West Ham after the club rejected a second offer from Arsenal.
The Gunners have been intensely pursuing the England international, who seemingly enjoyed a fitting farewell to his career with the Hammers when he helped them to Europa Conference League glory. But getting the marquee signing over the line is proving problematic for Mikel Arteta and co.
An initial £80 million offer was turned down, and then on Tuesday, the Hammers also rebuffed an offer of £90 million from their London rivals. West Ham are seemingly holding out for a fee in the region of £100 million plus, which would make Rice the most expensive British player in history.
And now Danny Murphy has encouraged Rice to take action in order to force a move. And the talkSPORT pundit went as far as to tell colleagues Simon Jordan and Sam Matterface that the midfielder refuse to kick a ball for a long as he remains at his boyhood club
"It gets to the point where Declan has a decision to make. Has he got the courage to kick out?" said Murphy, before citing examples of other players who had taken similar action. "You have to be Craig Bellamy, Joey Barton, you have to look after yourself.
"It only happened to me once in my career but you have to make it perfectly clear that if you keep me here, I won't be playing. And even though you don't really believe it long term you have to do it."
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And Murphy also speculated as to whether Man City would now try and hijack the deal, with last season's club captain Ilkay Gundogan having now joined Barcelona. The future of Bernardo Silva is also in doubt, leaving clear vacancies in the midfield of the treble winners.
And despite acknowledging that Rice was already based in London, the former Liverpool player also insisted Rice would would only have one option if City came calling: "If you had a choice between City and Arsenal, even though Arsenal are on a great trajectory, come one, you go City all day don't you?"
After captaining the club to European glory, beating Fiorentina in Prague, Rice was again serenaded by West Ham fans in a bid to persuade him to stay. They sang '10 more years 10 more years Declan Rice' as the player filmed the scenes from the pitch on his mobile phone.
