West Ham are faced with the unenviable task of replacing their best player and captain this summer.

Though the Hammers are set to strike a lucrative deal to sell Declan Rice to Arsenal, no amount of money can be expected to find them a like-for-like replacement.

Denis Zakaria, however, is said to be of interest and could be as close as they can get.

We profile the midfielder who seemed set for stardom, played for Chelsea last season, and may be available for a fraction of Rice's nine-figure price tag.

Highly sought-after

Eighteen months ago, Zakaria was well out of West Ham's reach.

The Swiss international, impressive for Borussia Monchengladbach, was a target for Manchester United and ended up signing for Juventus in January 2022 with his contract set to expire that summer.

A career at the top of the European game beckoned — but he never found his feet in Italy, with Adrien Rabiot and Manuel Locatelli limiting his minutes in midfield.

In September 2022, he was farmed out on loan to Chelsea for a doomed spell that would make the Hammers a more realistic destination than they once seemed.

Rice replacement

Zakaria shares several attributes with Rice.

Both players cover ground quickly and have an innate ability to break up play. In his final season in the Bundesliga, only one central midfielder won the ball back more often in the defensive third than the Hammers target.

And while he is not ambitious in his passing, the 26-year-old ranked second for dribbles per game during that same period, mirroring Rice's ability to break forward with the ball.

Available relatively cheaply from Juve, signing Zakaria would go some way to replicating the England international's output while leaving money in the pot to strengthen other positions.

Premier League experience

West Ham can also reason that Chelsea have done the hard work for them, exposing Zakaria to English football enough that he would not need long to adapt to life at the London Stadium.

Though he did not shine statistically at Stamford Bridge, the Geneva-born maestro was a popular player in West London and seems built for the Premier League.

After an impressive FA Cup showing against Manchester City last January, he said: "It's not easy to play in England but actually I have the feeling that I'm made for this.

"It's really different with a lot of intensity, aggression and impact. I'm really enjoying English football."

Warning signs

Replacing a club icon is arguably the most significant signing that West Ham will make under David Moyes.

And though a reported £8million deal for Zakaria is a coup, the Hammers must improve on their track record of high-profile additions.

Sebastien Haller, Felipe Anderson and Gianluca Scamacca have arrived from Europe and failed to deliver in recent seasons, with their domestic business providing a much healthier hit-rate.

The East Londoners are not short of warnings from Premier League rivals about the dangers of spending the proceeds of one big sale.

Tottenham's use of a then world-record £85m they received from Real Madrid for Gareth Bale in 2013 was famously inadequate, while Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool career never recovered from misspending the £65m Barcelona shelled out for Luis Suarez in 2014.

If West Ham do not buck the trend, losing Rice could be a fatal blow.