Chelsea’s Pursuit of Caicedo: A Story of Frustration
According to multiple reports from major outlets Chelsea have grown frustrated in their attempts to sign Moises Caicedo from Brighton. Mike McGrath, writing for the Telegraph, has reported that Brighton want more than £100mil.
The Fans’ Outrage Over Price Tag
That price tag has caused some outrage on social media with Chelsea fans upset by what they see as an attempt to hold their club to ransom. There’s some irony in that, given that Chelsea have turned down multiple offers from Brighton for Levi Colwill but let’s ignore that for now.
Caicedo: From Ecuador to Premier League Star
Caicedo is a 21-year-old player that Brighton signed directly from Independiente del Valle in Ecuador and have developed into one of the very best midfielders in the Premier League. It was Brighton who took the chance on him, while so-called bigger clubs tiddled their thumbs, and paid the £5mil fee that others weren’t prepared to.
He arrived at the club in February of 2021 and Brighton decided to take a cautious approach with his development. He spent half a season on loan at Beerschot before being recalled after a raft of injuries left Brighton short in midfield.
He made 10 appearances across all competitions in the second half of the 21/22 season, playing just under 800 minutes in total. It was a small sample size, but it was enough to see that Brighton had something very special on their hands.
Emergence of a Midfield Powerhouse
This past season he seized a starting role in the team, taking the place of Yves Bissouma who had left to join Spurs. From the first game of the season, it was clear that Caicedo wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill midfield. He was a powerhouse, a one-man wrecking machine with a high level of game intelligence and a great feel for the game.
People constantly highlight his defensive attributes, and rightly so. Caicedo is, potentially, a world-class defensive midfielder as either a lone pivot or in a double pivot. His positional sense, timing, spatial awareness, and reading of the game are remarkable for someone so young, and he displays a Kante-like ability to track runners and simply take the ball off people whenever he wants.
But to pigeonhole him as simply a destroyer is just wrong. He’s comfortable on the ball and a good passer. More importantly, he makes good decisions in possession and plays with a progressive mindset. It’s these traits more than anything that separate him from the pack.
The All-Encompassing Skillset of Caicedo
Caicedo is young enough and talented enough to be moulded into an all-encompassing box-to-box midfielder, or a holding midfielder. He even dropped in at right-back for a few games last season and looked like he’d been playing there for years. Nothing flusters him, he adapts to situations and continues to perform at a high level, which is another thing that makes him stand out.
Brighton will have looked at recent midfield transactions, such as Chelsea’s for Enzo Fernadez, and set their price. Chelsea fans might argue that Enzo had just won a World Cup but Caicedo has 18 months of Premier League experience while Enzo had none. Caicedo has 130 senior games for club and country under his belt, compared to 123 for Fernandez when he made his move to Stamford Bridge.
Comparing Caicedo with Rice
Brighton will also have paid close attention to the fee West Ham demanded, and received, for Declan Rice. Caicedo is three years younger, more versatile, and better defensively than Rice. In the three games Rice and Caicedo went head to head in over the past 18 months, the Ecuadorian dominated the Englishman each and every time as the Seagulls tallied up three comfortable victories.
Brighton’s Rightful Demand for Caicedo
Chelsea fans might not like it, but they set the market for midfielders with their signing of Fernandez, and, with Caicedo under contract for the next four years and no buyout clause in his contract, Brighton are absolutely right to be demanding a similar fee and also fully within their rights to do so.
