BURTON, England -- Declan Rice has played down talk of a move away from West Ham amid interest from Manchester United.

The midfielder, who is preparing for the Nations League finals with England, has been linked with a move to Old Trafford as part of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's summer shake up, but the 20-year-old insists he is not thinking of leaving the London Stadium.

"I know there is speculation," Rice said on Tuesday.

"During the season last year I signed a five-year contract with West Ham. My focus is fully on playing for West Ham. I've got a great connection with the fans -- I love them, they love me.

"That's the way it is at the moment. I'm not thinking about anything else."

Rice has enjoyed a spectacular rise this season -- despite his campaign beginning on a sour note after being substituted at half-time during West Ham's 4-0 defeat to Liverpool on the opening day.

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He was left out for the next three Premier League games by manager Manuel Pellegrini before returning against Everton to nail down his place for the rest of the season and earn a call-up to Gareth Southgate's England squad.

"After the game against Liverpool I thought I wasn't cut out for the Premier League," said Rice.

"The transfer window was still open and I was honestly thinking about going to speak to the manager to go on loan somewhere.

"The manager said I would get another chance and I had to keep working and that's what I did.

"I got my head down and that opportunity came against Everton and I haven't looked back since."

Rice has been capped twice by England since switching his international affiliation from Republic of Ireland in February.

After starting the 5-1 win over Montenegro in March, he is in line to get the nod in the Nations League semifinal against Netherlands in Guimaraes on June 6 -- a clash that could see him come up against Frenkie de Jong, who has sealed a €75 million move to Barcelona after starring in Ajax's run to the Champions League semifinals.

"De Jong has got his move to Barcelona and it's fully deserved," said Rice.

"He's a top, top player and it will be great to come up against him in the Nations League.

"When you start out in football, you always want to play at the top -- play in the Champions League. If you were in football and you didn't want to do that there would be no point playing.

"The Nations League is massive. It's really important. We've got ourselves into the semifinal. We've got a massive chance now to create history.

"With the squad Gareth has put together, with the players that we have, for sure we've got to be looking at the Nations League and winning it.

"It would stand us in good stead for the future and the Euros next year and the World Cup after that."

Toronto FC assistant Robin Fraser has emerged as the front-runner to become the next head coach of the Colorado Rapids, multiple sources have told ESPN FC.

Fraser, 52, has interviewed with the Rapids to take over for interim boss Conor Casey and is now considered to be the favorite for the position, with one source saying that Rapids management will take Fraser's candidacy before investor-operator Stan Kroenke at some point this week.

The Rapids, through a team spokesperson, declined to comment on the status of the head coaching search.

Fraser is highly-respected within MLS circles. A former standout defender in the league's nascent days, he was capped 28 times by the United States and has spent over a decade on MLS sidelines, including as head coach of now defunct Chivas USA for two seasons. He is known as a smart tactician.

The Rapids, currently with the worst record in the league, fired head coach Anthony Hudson earlier this month. They seem set for a rebuild, especially with Tim Howard retiring at the end of the year and the roster built under Hudson lacking a strong spine.

Fraser has found success in recent years, enhancing his already strong reputation tactically. In 2013, with the New York Red Bulls, he was the right-hand man on head coach Mike Petke's staff that won the Supporters' Shield, the first trophy in club history. Then, in 2017, he was the top assistant under Greg Vanney as Toronto won a domestic Treble of titles which included the Canadian Championship, Supporters' Shield and MLS Cup.

According to one source, the vast majority of candidates interviewed by Colorado were from, or had, strong ties to MLS -- a stark contrast to Hudson, who had no connection to the league before he was hired in November of 2017.

The pair had been rivals for many years. First competing for the Ligue 1 Golden Boot award, but also for a few seasons as part of one of the biggest derbies in French football, Lyon vs. Saint-Etienne. It was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang vs. Alexandre Lacazette or Lacazette vs. Aubameyang. Opponents first and foremost, but also nice to each other when together off the pitch.

"There has always been a lot of respect between us," Lacazette said.

After all those years of playing against each other, they are finally playing for each other at Arsenal -- and they are a large reason why the Gunners are preparing for the Europa League final in Baku on Wednesday night.

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This season, Unai Emery has found the right way to make them perform up front together. At the start of the campaign, the manager was keen for the Gabon international to play wide on the left, with the Frenchman on his own up front. Little by little, Emery has worked things out to find the right tactical structure that allows them to line up next to each other in and around the box.

Emery's 3-4-1-2 formation became really efficient at the turn of the year. Since Jan. 1, Lacazette has 11 goals and five assists in all competitions, with 16 goals and four assists for Aubameyang over the same span. In total, they have 50 goals in all competitions between them. When Arsenal faced their toughest opponents -- Napoli in the quarterfinals and Valencia in the semifinals -- the duo virtually knocked both sides out by themselves.

"It was just a matter of time. They clicked as soon as they met in the dressing room 19 months ago. They get on so well together in their social lives that it was just a matter of time before it spilled over onto the pitch," Laurent Koscielny, the club's captain who has seen the partnership blossoms, told ESPN.

The off-field element is crucial to their partnership, as well. Being around those two is a joy. You can hear them laugh from afar at each other's jokes ... or at each other's expense. They are always planning things or cracking jokes. Their amusing celebration at Mestalla against Valencia during the Europa League semifinal second leg was prepared before the match. The atmosphere was hot in the stadium and they could not wait to cool it down with a goal. So once they scored, they pretended to be chilly on the pitch like if they had put the air con on!

"They are always laughing," said Matteo Guendouzi, a midfielder they've both taken under their wings. "You can see how natural their relationship is. They are great friends off the pitch and understand each other so well on the pitch. They complement each other well."

Lacazette is the one who likes dropping deeper and taking part in the buildup play. He has all the attributes to be a second striker. Aubameyang likes to run in behind, playing on the shoulder of the last defender.

At 27, Lacazette is a bit younger (Aubameyang will turn 30 next month), and Lacazette also is a bit shorter (5-foot-7 versus 6-foot-1), but he can do things with the ball that Aubameyang can't. They now find each other on the pitch with their eyes virtually closed, as we saw against Valencia. Of Lacazette's 11 this season in all competitions, five have been for his strike partner. Going the other way, Aubameyang has set up three goals for his best friend at Arsenal.

Their rapport extends to social media too: Most of Aubameyang's recent posts on Instagram contain Lacazette! Although they don't mix too much of their private lives, they are inseparable whenever they're on Arsenal duty. They're never far from each other on the plane, at the hotel or in the dressing room.

"It's like they are two brothers," Guendouzi said. "They are perfect for each other. They tease people a lot, they are always in good spirits and they bring so much to the team with their attitude. They also deliver on the pitch, as well."

With Wednesday's Europa League final, the pair are one step from greatness and achieving something that some of the greatest strike partnerships in Arsenal history, like Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp, failed to do: bring back a European trophy to North London.

"It has been too long since 1994," said Lacazette, referencing the year Arsenal won their last -- and only -- major trophy outside England. "We want it to be our turn now, and we both want to help the team [get there]."

Yorkshire 181 and 5 for 0 trail Hampshire 235 (Fuller 54*, Northeast 50, Coad 4-41) by 49 runs

The best games of cricket are strewn with the evitable. Annihilations by teams untouched by fallibility rarely make good watching. Seldom, though, does a game pivot quite as sharply as this contest just before lunchtime when Hampshire's methodical pursuit of Yorkshire's first-innings total of 181 was thrown awry by two dismissals the nature of which was completely out of character with the cricket that had preceded them.

By close of play, which was delayed by a long rain-break in mid-afternoon, Sam Northeast's fifth fifty in eight Championship innings and James Fuller's canny 54 not out had served to blur the memory of the morning's play; this is exactly the sort of match critics mean when they complain about cricket's complexity. But the counterfactuals exercised an unusual fascination and some pondered what the game might have looked like had Ajinkya Rahane not lost his wicket and Rilee Rossouw his marbles.

We are being too harsh, perhaps. Nevertheless, a session which had followed an enthralling if predictable course suddenly veered into eccentricity half an hour before lunch. It began at 12.40 when Steve Patterson brought Dom Bess into the attack. Hampshire were 80 for 2 and had lost only Joe Weatherley, brilliantly caught at slip by a leaping Adam Lyth for 14. Then, as if goaded by the introduction of spin, Rahane came down the wicket to Bess and was clumsily stumped by a fumbling Jonny Tattersall for 31. Rahane's thinking was relatively clear: rather in the fashion of many Indian batsmen, he was unwilling to let a spinner settle. Nevertheless, the dismissal still seemed something of a waste.

But such rational analysis was not possible with Rossouw's demise, albeit his innings began in relatively conventional fashion with a single off Bess. David Willey then bowled the next over. Rossouw drove his first ball through point before whacking the fifth over mid-off for a huge six. Then as if intent on disproving the schoolmaster's maxim that you can't hit every ball to the boundary, Rossouw tried to pull the next ball but only skied it miles into the air off the top edge. The chance was well taken by Tom Kohler-Cadmore at slip as other close fielders and wicketkeeper scattered.

"Who knows the secret of the Black Magic box?" asked a rather sultry voice in a chocolates advertisement in the 1970s. Alternatively, spectators at Headingley this morning might have been wondering what goes on in batsmen's heads when they are going about their work.

The dismissals of Rahane and Rossouw left Yorkshire with the advantage from the morning's play. That ascendancy was strengthened shortly after lunch when Tom Alsop was snaffled at slip by Lyth off Duanne Olivier and Northeast was leg before for 50 when shaping to playing Ben Coad across the line. Northeast is making the business of batsmanship look rather simple at the moment; one wonders what is going on inside a cricketer's head at those times, too.

But Hampshire are made of resolute stuff this season. Their new coach, Adi Birrell, is challenging every member of his squad to contribute before the start of every day's play, so perhaps it was appropriate that the player who answered the call this afternoon would not have been in the XI had Kyle Abbott not strained a calf in Saturday's Royal London Cup final.

Fuller is a shrewd batsman who clearly knows the shots he can play. His half-century included three sixes, one of them carved over third man and the other two hit straight. More significantly from Birrell's perspective, he helped Ian Holland add 37 runs for the seventh wicket and Keith Barker put on 27 for the eighth, stands which saw Hampshire take a first-innings lead. (Holland and Barker's contributions also meant that ten batsmen have reached double figures in this match without making 20.) Mason Crane and even the last man, Fidel Edwards, also did their bits although both were bowled by Coad when play resumed after a long break for rain.

The Yorkshire openers survived three overs before close of play which arrived at nearly seven o'clock after one of those days when the early overs of the morning seemed distant indeed. Yet it would be a shame if anyone forgot the astonishing athleticism of Lyth who leapt backwards from second slip to complete a one-handed catch after the ball had looped up off Weatherley's bat and shoulder. Those were clearly the deflections identified by Rob Bailey; Weatherley's downcast look and his slow amble back to the pavilion suggested he thought no bat had been involved.

The old sweats will say that if Hampshire's opener is in doubt as to what happened, he need only look in the scorebook. But sweats of whatever vintage will recall Lyth's catch deep into the winter; and they may also look forward to the next act of a drama whose outcome remains quite uncertain. This may indeed be the type of game critics identify when complaining about cricket's complexity. But it is also the sort of contest which enthrals the rest of us.

Warwickshire 293 (Norwell 64) and 26 for 0 lead Surrey 188 (Foakes 57*, Patel 4-53) by 131 runs

After scaling impressive heights last year, Surrey's 2019 season is still at base camp. Like Somerset, who at this stage look favourites to take their title, they have yet to suffer a defeat, but neither have they registered a win. Warwickshire have tasted only defeat yet at the halfway point are the team in control.

Their most potent weapon, as it has been so many times in the last eight seasons here, in only one of which he has not snared at least 51 first-class wickets, has been Jeetan Patel. The New Zealand offspinner and club captain turned 39 earlier this month, yet has a contract until the end of next season.

It is not difficult to appreciate why Warwickshire value him so highly. On a slow surface from which Gareth Batty had been able to extract some turn on the first day, Patel introduced himself in the ninth over of Surrey's innings and bowled beautifully for 31 overs unchanged.

The heavy weight of left-handers in Surrey's line-up doubtless came into his thinking and he troubled Scott Borthwick and Rory Burns from the outset, while simultaneously blocking off one end. Five of his first nine overs were maidens.

Repeatedly, he turned the ball past the bat or found the edge only for the ball to fall safe. He had three or four men in a claustrophobic cluster round the batsman. There were stifled appeals, oohs and aahs from spectators, but no wickets for 15 overs until, suddenly, three came at once, in the space of five balls.

Dean Elgar, another left-hander, frustrated for almost an hour, ran out of patience and smacked one straight to extra cover. It was a wicket well earned and there were two more right behind it. Patel's namesake Ryan survived his first two balls but nicked the third to Dominic Sibley at second slip. Will Jacks lasted only one, Will Rhodes snatching the ball almost off the floor at first slip.

It meant that Surrey, who had been 73 for 1 barely 40 minutes earlier, were in something of a spot at 92 for 6. Back in the pavilion, Burns was regretting still more keenly that he had played so loosely after working hard to get to 40 that a wide long-hop from Olly Hannon-Dalby had ended up in the hands of backward point.

Liam Norwell, whose free-scoring 64 at No. 10 was now growing in value, had followed up his early dismissal of Mark Stoneman with a fine delivery that clipped the top of off, claimed a second success when Scott Borthwick, trying to work to leg, was pinned in front. Surrey could now think only of damage limitation, still more than 200 behind.

They managed at least to avoid the follow-on. Rikki Clarke, who spent eight-and-a-half seasons pulling on a Warwickshire shirt before returning to Surrey during the 2017 season, launched a counter-attack, beginning with 14 runs from three balls off Norwell, prompting the former Gloucestershire bowler's temporary removal from the attack.

Clarke and Ben Foakes added 58 but the charge ended when a brilliant throw from cover point by Sibley ran out Clarke with a direct hit. Sibley, of course, is the ex-Surrey man who moved to Edgbaston as part of the agreement that allowed Clarke to travel in the other direction.

Surrey immediately lost Morne Morkel, who lasted only four deliveries before Patel bagged him as his fourth success. With Batty at the other end, Foakes completed his half-century, but two wickets in two balls by Henry Brookes left the champions with a deficit of 105, to which Sibley and Rhodes added 26, coming through a testing 12 overs unscathed at the close.

Patel was as pleased with the collective effort as much as his own performance. "To win three sessions today was huge," he said. "To perform as we did all day was tremendous.

"It is only halfway and we have to keep it going session after session. We have a young team but we have showed signs in the last two matches that the younger players are learning about playing Division One cricket and that is very positive for us."

Kent 182 (Siddle 3-29) trail Essex 313 by 131 runs

When Essex won the County Championship in 2017, Jamie Porter and Simon Harmer shared 147 wickets between them. The plan was simple; Porter grabbed wickets with the new ball, Harmer came on once the lacquer had gone, wheeled away from one end and an assortment of seamers rotated at the other.

The plan was pretty much repeated last season, but Essex's batsmen didn't get the volume of runs to back up Porter, Harmer and Peter Siddle. Here at Chelmsford against Kent, it's been like the (not so) old times all over again. Alastair Cook's 125 in Essex's first innings (64 more than anyone else has managed in this match so far) gave his bowlers plenty to play with on a pitch that is assisting the seamers and providing enough encouragement for a very good spinner. Porter, Harmer and Siddle have played to their hearts' content. At times it was like watching a particularly sadistic cat toying with a particularly infirm mouse.

Kent took just 32 balls to wrap up Essex's innings in the morning session. Thereafter the torture began. Sean Dickson, fresh from a match haul of 219 runs against Surrey at Beckenham last week, confirmed the impression that he is very much a feast or famine batsman by succumbing to the last ball of Porter's opening over, giving a catch to Harmer in the slips.

It wasn't until the 53rd ball of the innings that we witnessed Kent's second scoring shot as the returning Joe Denly and the usually fluent Zak Crawley were offered nothing by Essex's disciplined opening bowlers. No width, nothing short, not the merest sniff of an opportunity. When Crawley departed to the last ball before lunch, caught in the leg trap by Ravi Bopara off Harmer, Kent had crawled to 42 for 3 off 23.1 overs.

This was not the sort of cricket designed to attract a new audience of cricket agnostics. This was very much for the connoisseur but my goodness it was absorbing. It is often said that spinners get a raw deal with the way the red-ball fixtures congest at the start and end of the season. But a very good spinner - and Harmer really is a very good spinner - find ways to thrive be it in April, May or July. Last year, Surrey signed the pace-bowling Kolpak Morne Morkel, and he was arguably the difference that turned a good side into a Championship-winning one. Harmer's impact at Essex has been no less profound. To watch him tie Kent's batsmen in knots, and nail most of their feet to the crease for good measure, was to watch a serious operator prove how potent top-class spin bowling can be, whatever the conditions, whatever the time of year.

He looks to get batsmen caught in the leg trap either at short-leg or, as he did twice here, round the corner at leg-slip. To achieve this he has to generate significant turn and, crucially bounce. His height helps. And yes, the pitch also helped, though not extravagantly. The fields that Ryan ten Doeschate sets for him resemble the sort of fields you see in old photographs of Jim Laker bowling in the 1950s. To watch Harmer is, it feels, like stepping back in time.

At the other end, however, he is assisted by a trio of very able seamers who never release the pressure. Although Porter and Sam Cook took the new ball, arguably Siddle is the most important of the three. Hammering away at a length and letting his natural variations combine with slippery pace, he ensured Kent went nowhere. Between the three seamers, they bowled 53.2 overs conceding just 91 runs and bagging seven wickets. Very seldom did any of them try the short ball. There was enough in the wicket for them to know that relentless nagging accuracy would be enough.

It is true that some of Kent's batsmen are not in the best of nick, notably Daniel Bell-Drummond and Darren Stevens, but the former, particularly, was determined to stick it out. It was at times not pretty to watch as he groped and pushed at thin air ball after ball, but what does impress about this Kent side is that they didn't collapse. But like a punch-drunk boxer who has failed to land a retaliatory blow, they really could do little more than delay the inevitable. It was to their credit that they lasted 88.2 overs, but a last-wicket partnership of 45 between Matt Milnes and Imran Qayyum - the highest of the innings - was nothing like enough.

When Milnes was bowled off the last ball of the day, the only batsman not to be dismissed to a catch behind the wicket, Kent had conceded a first-innings deficit of 131. On what is a good sporting pitch they may struggle to get back into this match, but they have shown enough character, not just in their first innings but throughout the season so far, to suggest they'll give it a damn good go.