Man who said Moises Caicedo was worth £100m bids £55m
And the rest of the football world wonders why Brighton fans are not keen on Graham Potter and his new employers? Having said in August that Moises Caicedo was worth £100 million, Glow Up and Chelsea have come in with a frankly insulting January bid of £55 million for the Ecuador midfielder.
David Ornstein of The Athletic reported that the Blues had offered that amount via a written bid, only to be told exactly where to go by Brighton.
Which is hardly a surprise. 90min wrote earlier in the week that the Albion do not envisage any situation that would convince them to even contemplate a deal in January for Caicedo.
Brighton rarely sell anyone in the middle of the season and they are under no pressure to move Caicedo on with his contract running until 2025.
With European football a genuine hope for a squad winning games and scoring goals for fun under Roberto De Zerbi, the Seagulls should be determined to keep this group together until the summer.
Leandro Trossard is the exception to that of course. Having downed tools and been dropped as a result, there was little point in hanging onto a player the Albion have shown they can cope without with Arsenal willing to pay £27 million for his services.
The good news for Tony Bloom is that he does not even need to slap a price tag on the head of Caicedo. In one of his last acts before walking out on Brighton for Chelsea, Potter did that for Bloom.
Liverpool were rumoured towards the end of the summer transfer window to be considering a £42 million bid for Caicedo.
When questioned on the Albion’s hopes of keeping Caicedo, Potter said: “You’d probably get his boots for £42 million – maybe! £100 million? They can try.”
Quite what Caicedo has done to wipe £45 million off the value Potter believed him to be worth five months ago is anyone’s guess.
Potter and the recruitment specialists he took with him to Stamford Bridge – Paul Winstanley and Kyle Macaulay – all know what the Albion value Caicedo at.
Why waste everybody’s time with a derisory offer that was miles away from both Bloom’s valuation and the very public price Potter put on Caicedo’s head as recently as August?
Which is also £7 million less than what Chelsea paid for Marc Cucurella. Caicedo is a player whose ability, future potential and importance to Brighton far exceed Cucurella’s, which should make it fairly obvious that the midfielder will cost more.
That Potter wants Caicedo at Chelsea is no real surprise as there is an argument to be made that he only got the Stamford Bridge job because of Caicedo.
Before Caicedo made his Premier League debut away at Arsenal in April, Brighton had lost six games in a row followed by a 0-0 home draw with rock bottom Norwich City.
The Seagulls had scored only once in that barren run and were without a goal at the Amex since January, leaving the Albion home crowd with nothing to cheer for three months.
Chelsea would not have touched Potter with a bargepole had that form continued. Caicedo being elevated into the starting XI was a massive part of the turnaround, which saw Brighton lose only two of their next 14 games spread across the end of the 2021-22 and the start of the 2022-23 season.
Potter must have had his brain removed during his glow up if he believes a player who transformed a season that was meandering into nothingness following such a promising opening six months is worth so little.
To cap another day in Todd Boehly’s grand plan to turn Chelsea into Brighton, the Blues were rumoured to have contacted Spurs after the possibility of buying Yves Bissouma.
Yes, we now appear to be at the stage where their desperation to create Chelsea & Hove Albion is such that they are trying to sign former Brighton players as well as taking anything not nailed down at the Amex.
Caicedo may not be physically attached to the floor, but it will take a massive bid from Chelsea to make Brighton sell in this transfer window.
Potter knows that. Winstanley knows that. Macaulay know that. They all know £55 million is taking the piss, but that is Chelsea under Boehly – a bit of a joke.
