Mauricio Pochettino couldn’t resist making a playful ‘dig’ at his Liverpool counterpart Jürgen Klopp after Chelsea secured the signing of Brighton midfielder Moisés Caicedo, although any undertones to the reference may well have been inadvertent.
The Blues splashed out a British record transfer fee of $145m (£115m/€145m) — including $19m (£15m/€19m) in add-ons — to bring the Ecuador international to Stamford Bridge. The deal came after Liverpool had a bid of $140m (£111m/€140m) accepted by Brighton for the 21-year-old, only to be beaten by its Premier League rival.
Chelsea’s summer spending spree has exceeded $379m (£300m/€379m) with the arrivals of Christopher Nkunku, Nicolas Jackson, Axel Disasi, Lesley Ugochukwu, Robert Sánchez, Ângelo Gabriel and Caicedo. To add insult to injury for Liverpool, Chelsea also managed to win the race for the signing of Southampton midfielder Roméo Lavia.
The significant transfer fees spent by Chelsea under owner Todd Boehly have been a point of wide debate. Pochettino took the opportunity to bring up Klopp’s comments from 2016 when he suggested that he would leave football if his team ever spent $126m (£100m/€117m) on one player.
The Argentine manager referred to Klopp’s quote while discussing the uncertain future of Romelu Lukaku at Chelsea. The $123m (£98m/€114m) signing may still have a chance to prove himself at Stamford Bridge if the club fails to find a buyer.
Pochettino quipped during the press conference (via the Mirror): “I saw Klopp said I will not be in the business [of football if they spend £100m] and then they offered £100m and he says, oh I made a mistake, and something changed.”
He was referring to Klopp’s analysis of Manchester United’s $112m (£89m/€104m) signing of Paul Pogba seven years ago. The football transfer market has since experienced significant inflation, with Premier League clubs having more financial power than ever before.
Since the new ownership took over Chelsea last summer, the club has spent over $1bn (£800m) on transfer fees. Enzo Fernández previously held the British transfer record, now taken by Caicedo — and other notable signings include Wesley Fofana, Mykhaylo Mudryk, Marc Cucurella and Raheem Sterling.
While Liverpool has not been as extravagant in its spending, it has still made significant investments this summer, signing Alexis MacAllister, Dominik Szoboszlai and Wataru Endō with more business likely to follow ahead of next week’s deadline.
