RICE READY TO GO APE!

DECLAN RICE can deliver a kingsized box-office derby performance today.

- by ALEX HANKIN

Rice's Arsenal welcome West Ham (3pm) for a local match-up that reliably rattles its cage - with 16 goals in the past four meetings, plus 15 yellow cards and one red.

Nuno Espirito Santo got a point in his first game as the Hammers third boss of 2025 in the 1-1 at Everton - a performance that will have showed him he has something to work with, but plenty to work on.

David Moyes' Toffees prodded again and again at West Ham's aerial vulnerability, which yielded Michael Keane's headed opener.

Irons keeper Alphonse Areola looks strangely iffy under a high ball for a man who's 6ft5in, plus his arms, and he tends towards the sort of swatting motion favoured by King Kong up the Empire State building.

You'll recall that the big monkey pays a heavy price for not commanding his box, getting relegated - and while there probably will be three worse Prem teams than West Ham this season, Nuno won't be scaling any heights quickly on all the evidence so far.

You'd have to be bananas to fancy his 16-1 boys at the Emirates, where Arsenal have evolved into one of the true big beasts, with the sort of setpiece weaponry that looks tailormade to give the visitors a monstering today.