Moisés Caicedo, the 22-year-old midfielder, has been told he should have signed for Arsenal or Liverpool instead of Chelsea. The Reds had agreed a $140m (£110m/€128m) deal with Brighton to sign Caicedo in the summer, but he chose to join the Stamford Bridge outfit instead. As a result, Liverpool’s transfer fell through and Chelsea swooped in.
Chelsea agreed a British-record $147m (£115m/€134m) deal with Brighton, and Caicedo signed an eight-year contract. He has played 17 times for the Blues in the Premier League this season, where he has been unable to significantly improve their performances or results from last year.
While Chelsea is fighting for a place in the top half of the table, Arsenal and Liverpool are battling for the top spot. Speaking on ESPN, Craig Burley said that Caicedo made a mistake by joining Chelsea after his rapid rise to fame at Brighton.
“At Brighton, he looked like a £100m player,” said the former Blues midfielder. “He was a right player at Brighton, he was. Arsenal wanted him, Chelsea, Liverpool wanted him. Chelsea got him. He should’ve gone to Liverpool or Arsenal, not Chelsea. That’s a different story. He’s made the wrong move at this moment in time, no sign of that changing.”
In December, Jürgen Klopp spoke about his failed attempt to sign Caicedo. During a Q&A session with Liverpool fans at Anfield, he said: “The summer we had with a few strange things happen in the transfer market but here between us I can say: ‘My god we were lucky’. We didn’t know that in the moment, to be honest, we didn’t realize in that moment. But I am really happy it worked out like that. You never know if it will work out like that.
“I had an extremely good feeling before we started pre-season, we already had Macca [Alexis Mac Allister] and Dom [Dominik Szoboszlai] already in and then we knew there was a chance for Ryan [Gravenberch]. Then we obviously realized other central defensive midfielders don’t want to join Liverpool… yeah, you see what happens. And then we found [Wataru] Endō. He’s an exceptional player, he is, absolutely.
“He’s 30 years old, experienced, captain of Japan and it’s not possible, sure [he’s] not the first pick because the transfer market is like that. We don’t go for a 30-year-old player who plays in Germany and nearly got relegated. But thank god we looked about things twice and had a deeper look and got this boy and he wanted to come definitely and that helps.”
