Good morning everyone, a very quick Sunday recap for you.
Much of the talk this morning is about our offer for Moises Caicedo, Brighton’s Ecuadorian midfielder. He’s a player we’ve been interested in for a while, but this weekend we put in a £60m offer for the player which was immediately turned down. Brighton don’t want the player to leave during this window, and you can understand why.
It’s almost the end of January, his ability to find a replacement is limited by time, not to mention he’s been a key part of his team this season. They are currently in the sixth position, so I can fully understand their reluctance to sell. The situation was further complicated by the fact that Caicedo recently switched agents, and his Instagram statement asking the club to let him go feels like a very blunt force tactic. If he’s in charge in Brighton, it’s the sort of thing that would back him up, he wouldn’t make him more willing to make a deal.
This one seems extremely messy to me right now, but that doesn’t change the reality of our situation either. We are top of the table, we absolutely need a midfielder before the window closes, and I suspect we are pushing more for this player because of that. That brings us to money.
It has been fascinating to see how an offer of 60 million pounds, SIXTY MILLION POUNDS!! – has been described as derisory and laughable from some quarters. Of course Brighton are entitled to put whatever valuation they want on him, especially given the circumstances, but I think people have gone a bit crazy when it comes to transfer fees. Sometimes football is a bit more like Monopoly, the way money is doled out, but maybe we should take a step back and think about this outside of the transfer window bubble.
£60m is an extraordinary amount of money for a 21-year-old with less than 30 Premier League appearances to his name. Brighton paid around £4m for him, so we’re talking £56m in profit two years from now. Again, this is not to say that you should just accept it, but to frame how people talk about money in football. In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, watching seasoned journalists scoff at an offer this size just doesn’t feel right. I understand that football is something special/crazy/ridiculous in itself, but come on.
There are all sorts of reasons why the market is like this, and while some clubs are more to blame than others, ultimately this is a consequence of the Premier League being the richest league on the planet, awash in TV money. . How much would Moisés Caicedo cost if you buy him from the Bundesliga or Ligue 1? Certainly a much smaller £60m percentage, that’s for sure, but this is the market we exist in and have contributed to as well. All the Premier League clubs have made their respective financial beds, and now they have to rest on them. That is where we are, but while I fully understand the context, I find the dismissal of massive amounts of money as mere pennies off-putting.
I like Caicedo, but in the same way that Mykhaylo Mudryk’s fee made me uncomfortable due to its size and the player’s relative inexperience, so does this one. I know, it’s not my money, but still. There are reports that we have come back with a bigger offer and other reports that Brighton simply won’t sell. In the end, every player has his price tag, clubs hold out until the money is simply too good to turn down, but it remains to be seen if we’ll find that middle ground with Brighton before Tuesday at 11pm.
It’s clear the club is very interested in adding to the team before the window closes, and it’s been quite interesting to see the briefing on how spending on Caicedo now wouldn’t affect our ability to sign Declan Rice in the summer. It’s just that right now time is running out and we are involved in a difficult and complicated situation that could leave us without anyone if it doesn’t go our way.
Hopefully there are contingency plans.
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Crazy Tip: Why don’t we sign the Brighton scouts and save ourselves a ton of money in the long run?
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Ok, let’s leave it there for now. James and I are recording the Arsecast Extra for you later this morning. Keep an eye out for calls for questions on Twitter @gunnerblog and @arseblog on Twitter with the hashtag #arsecastextra, or if you’re a member of Arseblog on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord. server.
We should have the podcast for you by lunchtime. Until then.
