Chelsea will reportedly break the British transfer record after agreeing to pay $145 million for Brighton‘s Moises Caicedo.
With Caicedo looking set to join Chelsea all summer long, Brighton have not been budging on their valuation of the 21-year-old midfielder.
They have also upped the asking price since Liverpool had a $140 million big for Caicedo accepted last week.
The player is said to have rejected Liverpool’s advances as he wants a move to Chelsea and per this report from David Ornstein, it appears he has now got it.
Chelsea, Liverpool badly need a holding midfielder
The main thing Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on Sunday proved was that they both need a new defensive midfielder. Fast. The game was way too open and both teams looked great going forward but extremely vulnerably defensively and could not control the tempo of the game.
A destructive, smart holding midfielder like Caicedo is a game-changer and it appears Chelsea will be benefitting from his brilliance.
Caicedo is an incredible talent but this is a very expensive deal, even for Todd Boehly and Chelsea’s big-spending American owners.
It is one Chelsea just can’t back out of now because they have so publicly chased Caicedo. Quite how they can make all of these signings work within the parameters of financial fair play rules is going to be extremely interesting to watch and Mauricio Pochettino may need to trim his squad further.
But they’re going to do it and Caicedo playing in a high-pressing Pochettino team is perfect.