Liverpool, it seems, is set to miss out on signing Moisés Caicedo. The Ecuadorian, at the time of writing, will be heading to Chelsea instead, signing an eight-year deal for a fee of $146m (£115m/€133m).
According to The Telegraph, Chelsea will submit that amount and get the deal done after negotiating for the player on Saturday. By Sunday, he could be paraded around the Stamford Bridge pitch during the opening fixture of the new Premier League season against the Reds.
But what happens then for Liverpool? A plan will need to be formed. Chiefly, that is likely to include Southampton’s 19-year-old starlet Roméo Lavia, but Chelsea has also tabled an offer for the services of the Belgian.
In the best-case, dream scenario from this point onward, Liverpool would get a deal for Lavia done. Having seen three bids for the teenager knocked back already, the final one not far away from the asking price, it does not seem out of the question that is the first thought if Caicedo proves unattainable.
But would that be enough? There was a significant question mark hanging over a possible deal for Lavia before the news of Caicedo being explored broke, in that at 19, it is a lot of pressure to come in and expect him to be the instant solution. Liverpool’s midfield needs a substantial amount of fixing and asking Lavia to do that alone would be a tough ask.
Now, though, having been willing to place as much as $140m (£110m/€127m) on the table for Caicedo, the perception would be that there was potential to do more business if Lavia came in for half that amount.
Another center-back signing is important and that can be prioritized as well, but the length of this particular saga will not have helped in that regard. There are now only 19 days left of the summer transfer window and the first match of the new campaign is already set to kick off later today.
In a dream scenario, Liverpool would have signed Caicedo ahead of Chelsea. But if that proves to be impossible, then the next best thing is to bring in Lavia and another more experienced player, as well as a defender. That is a lot to ask and will not come cheaply, but Liverpool knows what is at stake.
Caicedo would have been a transformational player on the pitch, hence the willingness from FSG to sanction a mega-money bid well above the level that Liverpool has gone to before. Without him, Liverpool will need to make sure it does a sufficient amount of business to avoid a similar situation to the Aurélien Tchouaméni transfer last summer.
While lessons will have been learned from moving on without an alternative to Tchouaméni when he chose Real Madrid, there was a whole summer ahead back then. This time, there is less than three weeks.
