Eni Aluko says she's been proved right over Declan Rice after 'sexist' criticism

Eni Aluko believes she has been proved right over the Declan Rice transfer battle and says the backlash she received to previous comments on the topic was ‘sexist’.

Speaking on talkSPORT earlier this week, the former England forward claimed Manchester City were not actually interested in signing Rice and only made a bid on the request of Pep Guardiola’s former assistant Mikel Arteta.

Last week, Arsenal saw their opening two offers for Rice rejected by West Ham, who then turned down a £90m bid from Man City.

‘I think there’s a lot of cat and mouse going on here,’ Aluko said. ‘As a sporting director I used to do this a lot.

‘I used to call up a club, a big club, and say, “right can you put a bid in” and that would basically force my owner to put a higher bid in.

‘I don’t think Manchester City actually want to sign Declan Rice, I think what’s going on is Arteta has picked up the phone to Pep [Guardiola] and said “listen, Arsenal are going to do the incremental bid approach, if you put a higher bid in, that will push my owner”.’

Pressed on why Arteta would go down this route, Aluko added: ‘For speed and to get the deal done.

‘West Ham obviously want a certain valuation and I don’t know why Arsenal are taking this incremental approach.

‘It says to me that Man City coming in later on is going to help Arsenal, because the fans are going to get on it now.

‘The fans are going to say “hold on, if you let Declan Rice go to Man City when he was our number one target, that says a lot about Arsenal”. I used to do it all the time and it used to work.’

It was reported on Wednesday that Arsenal had finally agreed a deal to sign Rice worth £105m, with the Hammers captain now set for a medical at the Emirates Stadium.

Rice will not only become Arsenal’s record signing but the most expensive British player of all time, surpassing Jack Grealish who was signed for £100m by Manchester City.

Aluko has congratulated Rice on his ‘big move’ to Arsenal and says her ‘haters’ have now gone ‘missing’ after sending her ‘racist, sexist and misogynistic’ abuse over her previous comments.

‘Interesting 24 hours in the transfer window,’ she wrote on Twitter. ‘Congratulations Declan Rice on a big move to Arsenal.

‘What a player, what a guy! Had the pleasure of meeting Declan “Jollof” Rice and happy to see he got the record transfer move he wanted. Big intent and ambition from Arsenal.

‘Safe to say I suspected Rice wasn’t going up the M6 to Manchester! I’ve had a lot of laughs on this today, it was very quiet from the pile on brigade – somehow a lot of haters went missing. Apologies are much quieter than disrespect.

‘Disagreement is part of the job. But disagreement should never be used by people to be sexist, racist, misogynistic to women in football.

‘It’s an absolute disgrace and I won’t ignore it for the benefit of a lot of men who project their own jealousy & insecurity spouting abuse.

‘Women in football are not going away. Get used to it. We know our stuff, we speak from a place of professional insight and experience.

‘Take it or leave it, agree, disagree but if you choose sexism, racism, misogyny to disagree, you ARE the problem and you’re exposing yourself.

‘If you spend your time attacking women in football, you are exposing the fact you can NEVER be at the same level. You’re entitled to opinion, don’t abuse it to be racist, sexist and misogynistic.’

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