Eni Aluko claims Man City don't actually want Declan Rice and Pep Guardiola is just doing Mikel Arteta a favour

Pep Guardiola is such a master tactician that he doesn't actually want Declan Rice but is just helping Manchester City's rivals sign the West Ham United midfielder.

The potential departure of Rice away from West Ham this summer has become a full on transfer saga, as we await to find out where he ends up.

Arsenal are still thought to be the favourites with the 24-year-old preferring to stay in London rather than move to the European champions.

However City are definitely still in the hunt, despite having their first bid rejected by the Hammers after failing to reach the £100 million asking price.

You'd have thought that any team bidding £90 million for a player and trying to convinced one with his 'heart set' on a rival would have to be really serious in their desire to sign the England international.

However that is apparently not the case according to former Lioness Eni Aluko who thinks Guardiola has only put in some bids to help his one time assistant Mikel Arteta.

Speaking on talkSPORT Aluko explained her theory that it's all in order to force the Arsenal board into making a bid that matches the asking price.

"I think there’s a lot of cat and mouse going on here," she explained.

"As a sporting director I used to do this a lot, I used to call up a club, a big club. And I’d say: 'Right, can you put a bid in and that’ll get my owner to put a higher bid in.'

"It’s a bit like an auction, isn’t it.

"I don’t think Manchester City actually want to sign Declan Rice. I think what’s going on here is Arteta’s picked up the phone to Pep said: 'Listen Arsenal are going to do the incremental bid approach. If you put a bid in that’ll push my owner,' I think there’s a bit of that going on here.

The absolutely incredible claim was met by Laura Woods trying to get her head around why that would be the case, asking: "For speed?"

"Well for speed but they just want to get the deal done. West Ham want £100 million," Aluko explained.

Ally McCoist then interjected, asking: "Well why not pay it?"

Again the former Chelsea Women's striker answered: "Well this is the thing. I don’t know why Arsenal are doing this incremental approach.

"But it says to me than Man City coming in later on, it feels like it’s going to help Arsenal because the fans are going to get on it now and say 'If you let Declan Rice go to Man City when he was our number one target then that says a lot.'

"I think there’s a lot of that going on, I used to do it all the time."

After finishing her playing career, Eluko was made director of women's football at Aston Villa and was then appointed sporting director of Los Angeles-based Angel City FC and later director of recruitment.