Arsenal believe they will win the race for Declan Rice after submitting a British-record offer worth £105million, talkSPORT understands.
The Gunners are confident their third bid for the England midfielder will see off competition from Manchester City and be accepted by the Hammers.
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Rice, who has also held talks with Newcastle, has made it clear Arsenal are his preferred destination.
Arsenal have offered a guaranteed £100m plus add-ons.
Should the bid be accepted it would be a record fee involving a British player, surpassing the £100m City paid Aston Villa to sign Jack Grealish in the summer of 2021.
The transfer saga took another twist on Tuesday with the Premier League champions submitting a bid worth up to £90m for Rice, an offer which was subsequently rejected by West Ham.
However, former England women’s international Eni Aluko has her doubts about City’s intentions in their bid for Rice.
The former Aston Villa director of women’s football told talkSPORT: “I think there’s a lot of cat and mouse going on here. 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.’”
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Asked why Arteta would try the trick, Aluko continued: “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.”
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Rice is in high demand this summer with Hammers owner David Sullivan telling talkSPORT his Europa Conference League final-winning performance would be his last game for the club.
City emerged as late contenders to sign the 24-year-old especially after the departure of Ilkay Gundogan to Barcelona.
However, Pep Guardiola’s side have since acquired Croatia midfielder Mateo Kovacic from Chelsea.
Arsenal are set to be busy in the transfer market with Chelsea forward Kai Havertz and Ajax defender Jurrien Timber also closing in on moves.
