David Moyes admits true cost that West Ham paid price when they sold Declan Rice

David Moyes has boldly predicted that if West Ham were to keep star man Declan Rice, his team would have conceded 20 per cent less.

The 61-year-old ex-West Ham boss joined Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards during Wednesday's edition of The Rest Is Football, where he spoke about his time at Sunderland, managerial criticisms and coaching some of the world's best players - including Wayne Rooney. And as the episode came to a close, Lineker was keen on getting David's opinion on holding midfielder Rice.

A product of both Chelsea and West Ham's youth systems, the 25-year-old would sign his first professional contract for The Hammers in 2015. And with 204 appearances at a rock in the heart of midfield, it wasn't long before the bigger clubs came knocking for his signature.

Rice would ultimately leave West Ham in the summer of 2023 for around £100million, and Mikel Arteta would get his money's worth with Declan appearing across all 38 games for The Gunners last season as a key part of their Premier League title race. While Arsenal would ultimately finish in second place behind Manchester City, they would only concede 29 goals in total - and Moyes feels as though Rice could have had a similar effect on West Ham.

He said: "We conceded more goals this year because Dec could have tidied up. And I'm saying that he would have tidied up another 20% of them you know? When you do that, that changes results, it changes defeats into draws and different things."

West Ham conceded a total of of 74 goals in the 2023/24 campaign, and if Moyes' estimations are correct, then that would have knocked their goals against down to a humble 60 instead. Despite being sad to see Rice leave at the end of the previous season, Moyes was full of praise pertaining to Rice's technical ability on the pitch, as well as his attitude to develop as a professional.

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He continued: "Declan was such a great lad to have - his recovery speed, his ability. But I have to say he has improved in a lot of ways. He wanted to get forward more in the second year. The first year together we had Tomas Soucek and Declan Rice. Tomas was the one who was making the box and scoring the goals and Dec was sitting.

"There was a lot that said 'Declan Rice isn't going to be that good, he can't score a goal, he can't really get forward'. And I think Dec got a wee bit hurt by that as well, and it didn't actually help our balance as a team, because Tomas had to end up having to sit a little more and he wasn't as good as what Dec could do, and Dec at the time wasn't scoring quite enough. He was getting a few, but I think he wanted to prove to other people how good he could be at the other side."

When asked by Richards if he's better as holding or an attacking midfielder, Moyes said: "I think he's better as a six. But I've got to say, Mikel pushed him on - but that might just have been to suit Mikel."

Shearer then probed Moyes on whether there ever was an opportunity to keep a hold of Rice instead of letting him leave for Arsenal, to which the Scotsman admitted: "Behind the scenes, we had offered him a fortune to stay, we were putting it up all the time. Two years before we started, behind the scenes we were trying to give him...but he had his mind made up."

He added: "We always knew we were going to be losing Declan at the end of the year. But I actually thought 'if there's ever a way to conduct yourself and handle yourself, right up to the last minute'. Declan was signing the autographs, he was doing the pictures with the kids, he was doing everything. All the things you would hope he would do."