It's obvious why Man United want Rice - he might be funniest footballer around

Declan Rice has established himself as one of the best midfielders in the Premier League over recent seasons.

He was a star for England at Euro 2020, starting every game, and it is easy to see why a host of clubs want to prise him away from West Ham.

Chief among them are Manchester United, but they will likely have to pay north of £100million to stand any chance of tempting the Hammers into selling him.

The Red Devils will get another glimpse into what they would be getting, should they put enough money on the table – and it would have to be an eye-watering bid for the West Ham owners to justify it to the club's fans.

Not only is Rice class on the pitch, he's brilliant off it and can lay claim to being one of the funniest off it.

Here at talkSPORT.com, we've taken a look at a few times the 23-year-old has been a real joker.

Practical jokes

Someone who knows exactly what Declan Rice is like is former teammate Jack Wilshere.

The former Arsenal man told talkSPORT this week what makes the midfielder so funny, and one practical joke that was played on him, with Rice at the top of the suspects list.

He told Drive: “They're a special group of people at West Ham. The boys – Declan Rice, Aaron Cresswell, Ryan Fredericks, Dave Martin – a good group of funny guys. And Nobes is old school funny.

“They're all funny in different ways. Dec is funny because he just doesn't care what anyone thinks, he's a bit stupid with the comments he makes! They're funny but they're not meant to be funny.

“They'll pick on one person a day, it might be Cresswell, and they'll get on him about everything, anything he does in training and it's hilarious.”

“What they did to me at West Ham, I went in one day and they're all sat there but I didn't think anything of it. I go and get changed and then go to put my gym trainers on, try to move them and they've glued them to the floor! I had to get the caretaker to get a chisel to get them off.

“To this day I don't know who did it but I think it was Dec!”

Rice, Rice, Baby

The West Ham star provided one of the funniest Twitter moments of 2021 when he decided to join in with the popular #SingYourDialect.

Rice belted out his own impromptu version of Vanilla Ice's classic hit 'Ice, Ice, Baby', but with the lyrics slightly changed.

The England star quickly went viral on social media and everyone loved him getting involved with it.

Gets scared easily

We've all seen the video…

Mason Mount and best mate Rice provided one of the funniest moments of 2019 when the Chelsea ace shared a clip on social media.

The pair were enjoying a holiday abroad on a boat before Mount gave Rice the shock of his life.

The West Ham star was so shocked he scream out loud and of course the clip went viral.

Jack Wilshere also pulled a hilarious prank on the midfielder at West Ham by hiding in a washing machine, before scaring him as he walked by.

Basically, it's pretty easy to scare the England star.

'Edge, from the top rope'

Rice and partner in crime Mount epitomised what England fans loved so much about the team spirit during the brilliant Euro 2020 run last summer.

The pair were larking about in pool pretending to be WWE superstars, as you do.

In one clip, Rice said 'it's Edge from the top rope' and that caught the attention of the man himself.

The Rated-R Superstar tweeted back 'go get 'em, lads' with the three lion emojis.

Joker on the pitch

Rice gives his heart and soul to every game he plays for club and country, but knows the perfect moment to make a joke.

A brilliant moment came during England's 4-0 drubbing of Hungary back in September with his celebration.

In a hostile atmosphere at the Puskas Arena, cups and missiles rained down on the England players after scoring.

Rice jokingly picked up one of the cups and pretended to drink from it in what he said was to 'silence the haters'.