Rice remains vital to West Ham's future

Some worrying press reports that Chelsea are trying to prise Declan Rice away from West Ham, Deckers started out at Chelsea and is best friends with Mason Mount. There seem to be some mixed messages coming out the club, with the Guardian saying that Moyes wants to build a team around Declan, although the Evening Standard reports that, "It is understood an offer of £70million would be acceptable and hard to turn down, although few clubs may be able to meet that price in a post-virus market."

For all the financial problems of Covid-19 there are plenty of savings to be made elsewhere. Pablo Zabaleta and the 65k-a-week Carlos Sanchez are out of contract in June. With three number tens in the squad there is a case for selling one of Anderson, Fornals or Lanzini. Yarmolenko must also be likely to depart and, if anyone will have them, Ajeti and Wilshere could go too. 

It's true that every player has his price and that after selling Wayne Rooney at Everton Moyes managed to use the money to sign the likes of Cahill, Arteta, Coleman, Pienaar, Jagielka and Lescott, who all did very well for him. But there's no guarantee Moyes would be able to do that again and the reason for moving to the London Stadium wasn't to sell our best players. If Declan demands to leave it would be unwise to keep an unhappy player; but until he does we have to build a side around this immensely talented young man. 

Thin end of the veg

Today's Guardian reveals that David Moyes has been delivering fruit and veg as a volunteer driver in his home town of Lytham, Lancashire. "It was beautiful big boxes of fruit and veg, really colourful. I was enjoying it, going back to the shop to get another lot and then filing the car up," Moyesy told Jacob Steinberg. 

My pal Nigel quips that we've had quite a few turnips and has-beans at West Ham, while Matt suggests we've also had the odd overpriced Swede. Perhaps Moyes is a fan of root one football, even if he remains very worried about defensive leeks. And at least West Ham have some history with fruit and veg, having selected Tony Kale, Robert Greens, Florin Radishoiu and Michael Carrot... 

Moyes and Brady do the right thing

This is going to be a difficult time for all football clubs with no match revenue, no live TV payments and players on massive wages. Perhaps more so for the Hammers, who have spent a lot on players in the last two seasons. So it's good to see that David Moyes has agreed to take a voluntary pay cut of 30 per cut during lockdown and Karren Brady has tweeted that she is doing likewise. Another encouraging sign is that Mark Noble is one of the players administering the fund through which players plan to make voluntary donations to the NHS. 

Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the club is having a £30m rights issue to cover revenue shortcomings, which is "an invitation to existing shareholders to buy additional shares". Shares could then be offered elsewhere, which might perhaps be an opportunity for a potential new owner to get a stake in the club. It would be interesting to hear what financial/football journalists like David Conn have to say about this. The other positive news is that none of our players have as yet been caught in a "lockdown sex party" like Kyle Walker or illicitly training in the park like Jose Mourinho at Spurs.

While in the latest development the whole squad has agreed to take a reduction in wages and David Sullivan and David Gold have agreed to waive the interest on their loans. After all the ructions of the season so far it's good to see the club pulling together.

Players and board need to take a pay cut

Newcastle, owned by billionaire Mike Ashley, and Tottenham (where chairman Daniel Levy received £7m last year) have both rightly received flak for furloughing their staff and relying on the government scheme to pay 80 per cent of the staff's wages. Football is awash with money at the top and although match revenues have been hit it would chime with the mood of the country if the players and directors took a voluntary pay cut to see the club through to whenever games are resumed. 

Credit to Bournemouth's Eddie Howe for being the first PL manager to say he's taking a salary cut. At West Ham David Moyes could do the same while Karren Brady could certainly get by on less than her £1m-plus salary. David Sullivan and David Gold could perhaps announce they are taking reduced loan repayments this year to help the club. This would be the right thing to do and good PR, which the board certainly needs. 

The PFA are resisting efforts to cut wages at the moment, but as Paul MacInnes suggests in the Guardian, they should get together and decide among themselves to take a reduction at a time of national emergency. For a footballer it's not that difficult to scrape by on £80k a week instead of £100k a week. There should be more than enough to keep the people who sell us tickets and run the offices employed.