The Marc Cucurella Transfer Saga: 3 months of mayhem
Even Agatha Christie would have struggled to come up with the plot of the Marc Cucurella Transfer Saga which has dominated this summer’s window.
For three months, there have been numerous twists and turns, false rumours, discrediting of sources, accusations and finally… £62 million in the bank for Brighton.
Putting on our Poirot moustache and a dodgy French accent, here we unfurl the mayhem involving Brighton, Cucurella, Chelsea, Manchester City, Spurs, Twitter and that bloke Dave who wrote a poem at the Fans’ Forum.
Early May 2022: Spurs LOL
The 2021-22 Premier League season had not even finished when other clubs started to be linked with Cucurella. Neither Manchester City or Chelsea were mentioned at this juncture; instead, it was Tottenham Hotspur who were said to be interested in securing the services of the wild-haired Spaniard.
According to the Sports Witness website, Spurs believed they could tempt Brighton into selling with an offer of £17 million.
That would be the Albion making only a £2 million profit on their double award winning Supporters Player and Players’ Player of the Season with four years still to run on his contract. LOL.
Early June 2022: Brighton will accept £35 million
By the start of June, Kate and William’s children were entertaining the nation with their antics throughout the Jubilee celebrations.
Manchester City had things other than street parties and Queen Elizabeth II on their minds. Their interest in Cucurella was starting intensify, leading to a million “in the know” Twitter accounts to start posting that personal terms had been agreed.
A personal favourite was @Josh_Wilson33. Bless him, you could not fault his enthusiasm or determination to look like a total tit.
He started out by claiming Brighton would accept £35 million from City. He followed that up with breaking news that the Albion had agreed to sell for £40 million.
He would even argue back with anyone who pointed out there was no way Tony Bloom would sell Cucurella at such a price. In a strange turn of events, @Josh_Wilson33 no longer exists as a Twitter user. Can’t think why.
Mid June 2022: When the champions come calling, you cannot say no
By mid-June, the City Twitterati were out in full force. These accounts who only became fans when Sheikh Mansour started sportswashing and have no idea their local derby used to be against Macclesfield Town were adamant that when City made their move, the Albion would sell for £30 million.
“When the champions come calling, you cannot say no” was one of the best tweets on the matter. Maybe in Abu Dhabi nobody is allowed to say no to the unelected deputy prime minister of the UAE. The Premier League is not Abu Dhabi. Bloom could say no. And he did.
Mid July 2022: The champions come calling, Brighton say no
City finally made their move in the middle of July, submitting a £30 million bid. And guess what? Despite the insistence of City fans everywhere, Brighton turned it down.
Although never actually stated by the Albion anywhere, it became a commonly accepted fact that Brighton valued Cucurella at £50 million. If City did not want to pay that, then they were not getting the player.
A little bit later in Mid July 2022: Fabrizio Romano enters stage left
Enter Fabrizio Romano. When it became clear that Brighton were not going to budge, City began their normal tricks of trying to pressurise a selling club into reducing the asking price through friendly journalists and the media.
Romano began tweeting about how unhappy Cucurella was with the Albion refusing to sell. About how Cucurella had agreed personal terms and was desperate to move. About how he only had eyes for City and playing under Pep Guardiola.
Guardiola spoke in one interview about how he would like to sign Cucurella, but they would not meet Brighton’s asking price. Public comments like that from managers of other clubs do one thing – unsettle players.
You never hear Graham Potter commenting about transfer targets he wants out of respect to the club those players are currently at. It is a shame City and Guardiola do not extend the same courtesy.
Still Mid July 2022: Marc Cucurella’s birthday
Next came Cucurella’s birthday. Despite all this apparent unhappiness that Romano assured us was the case, Cucurella appeared in numerous photos posted by the Albion grinning like a Cheshire cat.
He was laughing on the training ground. He was laughing whilst playing in the Albion’s 2-1 pre-season win at Reading. He was even shown looking delighted with a birthday cake to celebrate turning 24.
End of July 2022: Brighton start trolling Romano
What made the Marc Cucurella transfer saga more enjoyable than the drawn-out negotiations was the amount of trolling going on from, well, virtually everyone involved.
Brighton took the gold medal in this regard with their use of ALT tags on Twitter photos. Making light of Romano’s frequent claims about the unhappiness of Cucurella, the Albion Twitter admin added a description to every picture uploaded of the full back saying “He looks very happy”.
End of July: City threaten to walk away
As July reached its conclusion and City had a second bid of £40 million turned down, the powers that be at the Etihad Stadium “threatened to walk away” from negotiations over Cucurella unless Brighton lowered their £50 million asking price.
Which was an interesting stance to take. Generally, threats do not work when the other party involved has all the power. You do not walk into The Salt Room and say to the waiter “If you don’t sell me that £50 ribeye steak for £40, then I won’t eat in your restaurant.”
The restaurant will simply bid you farewell. And that is what Brighton did. Threats and bullying had no impact on Bloom and so the Albion ended negotiations there and then.
This put City in something of a quandry. If they still wanted Cucurella, they would lose a lot of face having publicly admonished Brighton for sticking to the asking price.
In future negotiations, every club would know that City can be made to fold and that would drive up the cost of players to them. In his dealing with City, Bloom had showed the poker skills that made him a world champion.
There was only one option left for City to try and get their man…
Even nearer the End of July 2022: Cucurella hands in a transfer request
A transfer request from Cucurella seemed to send City fans into the sort of excited state you rarely see outside of a three-year-old when the Peppa Pig theme tune kicks off.
Brighton supporters though were much more relaxed about it all. Elliott Bennett, Lewis Dunk, Dale Stephens and numerous others had all told Bloom they wanted to leave the Albion in the 13 years he has been at the helm.
None of them went until the deal was right for Brighton. All a Marc Cucurella transfer request did was publicly confirm that he wanted to move to Manchester City.
Which we all knew to be the case anyway. Because why would you not want to win trophies, treble your wages and play under one of the greatest managers ever?
It did not change the situation in the slightest, nor lower the Albion’s valuation of Cucurella. City fans began screaming about denying Marc Cucurella a transfer and the player being kept against his will.
They seemed to think some sort of hostage situation was taking place, as if Bloom had Cucurella chained by his ankle to a radiator at the Amex like that bloke who cuts through his own leg in the fist Saw movie.
And apparently, no player would ever want to sign for Brighton again because the Albion would refuse to sell them in the future. A penny for the thoughts of Ben White and Yves Bissouma on that one.
Anyway, the transfer request appeared to be the final roll of the dice to make Brighton lower their asking price. When it did not work, City had no options left, other than to walk away or swallow their pride and pay the £50 million.
Start of August: Hello, Chelsea!
Then came the biggest twist of all. Suddenly, Chelsea were interested in signing Cucurella. They were willing to pay at least £50 million and wanted to get the deal done ASAP.
Romano now had egg all over his face having spent weeks saying Cucurella only wanted City. Turns out, he wanted whoever could offer him Champions League football and a better shot at going to the World Cup with Spain.
Bloom had played a blinder in refusing to entertain those derisory bids from the Etihad Stadium in favour of waiting for a club to meet the asking price.
Three days into August: Cucurella to Chelsea announced… then unannounced
It is not very often you see a football club announce on Twitter saying their player has not been sold. Brighton took what Paul Barber called an “unprecedented” step when releasing a statement saying: “Contrary to inaccurate reports from numerous media outlets this evening, no agreement has been reached with any club to sell Marc Cucurella.”
CLUB STATEMENT: MARC CUCURELLA.
Contrary to inaccurate reports from numerous media outlets this evening, no agreement has been reached with any club to sell Marc Cucurella.
— Brighton & Hove Albion (@OfficialBHAFC) August 3, 2022
The tweet was sent in response to Romano, the BBC, Sky Sports and various others saying a £52 million deal had been struck. The implication was clear – do not trust anything you are reading online.
Whether it was a clever thing to do remains up for debate. No transfer for Marc Cucurella had been agreed at that point as by the time the actual deal was announced, another £10 million was hacked onto the price. In that regard, Romano et all did have it wrong.
But it was still likely Cucurella would end up going to Chelsea, given how serious they were about landing the player. Which meant said tweet always had the potential to come back and bite Brighton on the arse somewhat…
Four days into August: Barber says no deal, Naylor announces deal done
The Brighton Fans’ Forum held on Thursday 4th August could have been dominated by questions about Cucurella. Instead, there was only one query about the wing back.
It came right at the beginning of the evening and would go onto be largely forgotten about at the end. Who cares about the club-record transfer of Marc Cucurella to Chelsea when Dave is reading a five minute long poem he has written berating the club for charging £2.50 for print at home tickets?
Barber said it was unfair for Brighton supporters to think they had sold their star player via the media when they had not. No club had yet met the Albion’s valuation of Cucurella and so he remained a Brighton player until someone did.
This was at around 7pm. By 9pm, Andy Naylor of The Athletic announced the deal with Chelsea was done. Brighton would receive £62 million for Cucurella and Levi Colwill on a season long loan from Stamford Bridge.
Whilst Barber was answering questions from fans about more bicycle stands at the Amex and being lectured in the form of a Shakespearian sonnet, Brighton went from no deal with Chelsea to Bloom extracting an extra £10 million in a couple of hours.
What a man.
Five days into August: Chelsea confirm the signing
The transfer of Marc Cucurella was finally confirmed on Friday 5th August. The £62 million was a world record fee for a full back, the sixth highest for any defender and made Cucurella the third most expensive Spanish player of all time.
Romano desperately tried to paint a picture that he had been right all along. Even though he got the move to City incorrect. Cucurella only wanting to move to the Etihad incorrect. And the fee Chelsea were paying incorrect with his original “Here we go!”
Chelsea meanwhile used Brighton’s “No agreement” tweet in their own announcement of Cucurella. The Blues posted: “Following reports from numerous media outlets this week, we can confirm an agreement has been reached with Brighton and Hove Albion for the signing of Marc Cucurella.”
CLUB STATEMENT: MARC CUCURELLA.
Following reports from numerous media outlets this week, we can confirm an agreement has been reached with Brighton and Hove Albion for the signing of Marc Cucurella.
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) August 5, 2022
To complete a quite incredible transfer saga, Cucurella then broke his silence on it all. He said: “Hello Blues, I’m finally here! So proud of joining this team and happy to have achieved one of my dreams since I was a KID, to play for CHELSEA F.C. Can’t wait to get started!”
In less than a week, Cucurella had gone from only wanting to City to realising a childhood ambition of playing for Chelsea. Funny that him being a Chelsea fan had never, ever been mentioned before.
What a crazy few months.
