In the early hours of Thursday morning, Liverpool and Brighton agreed a fee worth £111 million for Moises Caicedo with a medical scheduled for later today.
The Reds have moved with shocking haste to hijack Chelsea’s move after months spent chasing him.
The Ecuadorian is set to become Liverpool’s third midfield signing of the summer and will take the club’s transfer spend to £205 million.
Charlie Parker, Brighton journalist for the Express, claims a medical will be conducted later today. This is corroborated by the Athletic’s James Pearce.
FSG have been heavily criticised and while fans have valid concerns about recent transfer decisions, the signing of Caicedo demonstrates unprecedented ambition from the American owners.
Until now, Liverpool have never really involved themselves with marquee transfers due to the inherent risk of spending a huge sum of money for a player who may or may not reach the expectations set.
However, when they have spent big on Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker, in particular, it has been done with the belief that they were key pieces in a side on the precipice of exploding into an elite outfit.
The feeling among fans online has been that while this squad has several top players in various positions, squad depth in the middle of the park would hold them back if signings weren’t made.
The Romeo Lavia chase concerned fans with the Premier League season set to begin this weekend.
However, the out of the blue move to sign Caicedo has not only allayed fears, it has reignited the excitement about the new season that existed at the start of pre-season.
Now that it’s clear to supporters that Liverpool are not sleeping at the wheel but actually displaying incredible patience. This patience has only been worth it because they followed up on it with a clinical, ambitious move to beat Chelsea to a world star.
Much like other Liverpool signings, Caicedo seems to be a good person in addition to being a wildly talented footballer. The young star has not forgot where he is from and is said to visit his home town regularly, playing football with kids and in local tournaments.
Caicedo has, unfortunately, missed out on pre-season but Liverpool and Brighton have many similarities in their style of play that the switch shouldn’t be too turbulent.
Having already signed Alexis Mac Allister from the Seagulls, Liverpool now have that Brighton link in midfield. Added chemistry between two new signings should go a long way to ensuring the midfield rebuild goes smoothly.
