Maybe there are interpreted complications with the Lavia deal? Maybe we'll still sign him too? No idea. It is crazy money for Caicedo though, didn't see us spending that much on one player tbh
I can only conclude on this that Klopp thought Caicedo was going to Chelsea and we had no chance but he thinks he is the best player. He may have thought lavia was "ok" but didn't fancy the pants off him. We might have been looking at this vast pot of gold and thinking to buy a CB and lavia and now cannot. who knows. The hard negotiation for lavia and then suddenly enter an auction at midnight for caicedo and throw 110 mil down is absolutely bipolar behaviour.
I actually agree if we have that type of money I would hope it would be spent more wisely as I think VVD is pretty much shot (hoping I am proved wrong) and we could do with a proper RB. My other worry is there is a big transfer out on the horizon maybe Salah to cover it.
Just to address those that are asking why we didn't get Bellingham if we're prepared to pay this much for Caicedo... - They play different positions - AMC & Zobo were better value - We didn't expect to lose Fabinho and Hendo
I wondered about Salah, but we still have absolutely no cover for him if he goes, so you would think we would address that and there's been no indication so far.
And if Lavia was 4 years older he’d have more experience? Your point was Lavia only played 14 games less… not really true. Tbh I can’t really give proper opinion on Lavia. Only what you guys have been saying, didn’t standout last season but I don’t watch many saints games and hard to judge a player in a struggling team. Caicedo seems a better defensive player which is what we needed from what I gather of Lavia though? Lavia a bit more of a ball playing defensive player but maybe wrong? it does seem strange given the bids for Lavia but maybe lfc just got pissed off with the way saints dealt with the bids and all the leaks etc and just saying if you don’t want to actually negotiate then we won’t be held to ransom abd we’ll move on. No one really knows. We should still have a budget to go buy a defender. Whether we do or not is another question, haven’t seen any proper links but then we weren’t linked with caicedo properly either. 50m for Lavia and 50m on another defender maybe would have been better. We’ll never really know though
Plus he wanted to go to madrid, we can’t compete with them. plus he’s on 300k-350k plus a week. We can’t give a 19 year old that kind of money. Mac/Szobo/Caicedo will likely all be on around 120k I’d imagine so wages will almost be similar to what Bellingham is earning.
Still of the opinion we wanted Caicedo but priced out by Chelsea giving their spending in a short window till now. Landscape changed with Southampton playing hardball on the alternative so with season approaching, going in for Caicedo with intent proves there was money and that they know gaps need plugging. So with the added bonus of him being able to play alongside AMC again , the bedding in period should be much less. Bearing in mind our whole midfield just got binned off(bar thiago / jones). That's my theory and breaking the record is just tied to how much rice went for this summer (though one wonders when bubble bursts). Remember Arsenal bid 70m for him then proceeded to splunk on Rice. One hopes they have another signing or two lined up whilst the big signings were taking headlines.
That we could not afford it was either journos speculation or fans using it as a stick to beat the owners with. There was never a statement to that effect from the club as far as I can recall, and clearly it's not true. As I've said many times, we have no idea of what's happening in the background and faced with a lack of info people just make stuff up. Whether it was brinkmanship or just a lack of conviction over the deal I have no idea but it obviously wasn't the money per se. I'm happy from a football point of view if the deal goes through, but I think it's an obscene amount of money.
yeah and it just isn’t the way we operate, so I think we’ve obviously been interested and then seen that there is a real chance Chelsea can’t improve on their bid - so we swooped in
I’m going to lay on my sunbed and drink all inclusive drinks and when I come around, I expect this deal done! Enjoy lads
As I've said to our fans, who really knows what goes on in the background? There's a lot of baseless talk when there's no hard evidence. Something - who knows what - made the club feel that this was a better deal somehow.
It’s also a very lfc deal. How often do our transfers get dragged out? The Lavia one was very public and went on a while, so it does seem a lot of that was coming from saints side to try up the price and get bidding war going? Where as we’ve then turned around and within 24 hours of public knowledge have made and got bid accepted for caicedo. Similar to how most of our other deals get done. Maybe the Lavia thing was just a smokescreen but did seem very in lfc type negotiation and wouldn’t surprise me if we got annoyed with saints for way they handled things (and that’s totally their prerogative to do that btw)
