Moyes wants Rice to take over as West Ham captain amid Chelsea interest

West Ham manager David Moyes wants Declan Rice to stay at the club to take over as captain.

The 21-year-old midfielder has been tipped to move on to bigger and better things and Chelsea have emerged as the leading candidates to sign him this summer.

The England international was a member of the Blues' youth academy before he made the switch to the Hammers at the age of 15.

Rice has four years left on his contract at West Ham and Moyes has warned it will take a giant fee to convince the club to sell as they would rather see him replace Mark Noble as skipper. 

"We have still got a long way to go in the window, maybe somebody has the Bank of England but nobody has shown that," he told reporters.

"It was always the plan [to keep him], there was no intention to lose Declan Rice.

"We have had no bids and no enquiries. There is a lot of speculation but I can only tell you what I know.

"I wouldn’t want to lose him anyway because he is too big a player for us, he is too important and a big part of the squad.

"He’s been captain already, I think he is learning a lot of leadership from Mark Noble, so I hope in the future we will have an incredibly talented footballer with great leadership skills and will be the captain of West Ham."

The east London outfit hope to strengthen their team as they look to improve on last season's 16th-place finish in the Premier League.

Their attempts to sign James Tarkowski from Burnley have been knocked back, with the club setting a £50 million asking price.

But West Ham cannot afford to pay large fees because of the financial hit they have taken amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"We have all taken a bit of a hit from the Covid-19 situation, we certainly have and because of that it will make it difficult," Moyes added.

"We are trying to get players, ones that will improve the squad and not just bring them in willy-nilly.

"I want to get players I want. If Burnley say no and Sean says no then I respect that decision but yet, we have made a couple of offers for him."