Oh well, there’s always the Jan 24 transfer window 
Rumour is we’re gonna put a bid in for Caicedo from Chelsea
I’m baffled by the idea our options to play the 6 are any worse than they were last season.
Mac Allister has done a good job there and will only get better the more he plays. That means we have 1 good 6 (or option to play the 6).
Last season we had 0 good options to play there.
5 Likes
The irony.
Paul Joyce’s Times article from this evening (original article behind a paywall) -
Moisés Caicedo and Roméo Lavia snubs leave Liverpool in desperation
Despite a myriad of options, Jürgen Klopp’s side are still floundering in the defensive midfielder market with no end in sight
“Let’s talk about six, baby.”
It was in the giddy aftermath of Liverpool’s Champions League final triumph over Tottenham Hotspur in 2019 that Jürgen Klopp delivered that famous phrase, having totted up the number of times the club had tasted success in the competition.
The chances are that the Liverpool manager will have trotted the line out again as he held his daily coaches’ meeting at the AXA training HQ on Monday, albeit his voice would now be laced with exasperation.
Liverpool’s season already feels as though it hinges on remedying what has quickly become a problem position, with the cut and thrust in Sunday’s 1-1 draw away to Chelsea doing nothing to shake a suspicion which first formed when Fabinho and Jordan Henderson were allowed to leave for new adventures in Saudi Arabia.
There was a vulnerability to the visiting side at Stamford Bridge that was entirely expected without a specialist defensive midfielder, that all-important No 6, providing a shield and sniffing out danger. The qualities of Alexis Mac Allister, who joined in June, are already apparent, but he was not recruited to play as a single pivot.
That same accusation, of course, could be levelled at Mauricio Pochettino’s side, who were decidedly flimsy in the opening half an hour.
Within a few hours of the final whistle he had a solution in sight and, by Monday morning, there was the prospect of not only one new arrival, but two.
The British-record £115 million deal Chelsea have struck with Brighton & Hove Albion for Moisés Caicedo served as a blow to Liverpool. That Roméo Lavia, Liverpool’s original option as midfield hub in this window, is also now understood to prefer a move to Chelsea threatens to complicate matters further.
Liverpool’s bid for Caicedo was a Hail Mary shot. Having originally thought he was unobtainable, they were late to the party. The unplanned exits of Fabinho and Henderson created a gap in Klopp’s squad but brought in additional funds, while the failure to strike an agreement with Southampton for Lavia and Chelsea’s own inability to initially close the deal for Caicedo presented a window of opportunity.
However, from the moment on Friday when it became clear that the player still favoured a move to London, Liverpool expected to miss out. There had been enough encouragement from Caicedo’s camp to convince the Anfield club to agree a £111 million deal with Brighton the previous evening, but it quickly became apparent that they had been used.
Ultimately, their bid succeeded only in focusing the mind of the Chelsea co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali and landing Brighton a gigantic profit on a player signed from Independiente del Valle for only £4.5 million in 2021.
What has quickly become more of an issue is what Liverpool do next, especially as it is understood Lavia is now minded to move to Chelsea as well.
Liverpool’s stance on the 19-year-old Belgium midfielder had initially been to do with seeking value rather than not having the transfer funds available — hence bids of £38 million, £41 million and, a week ago, £45 million for a teenager with one season in the top flight under his belt.
Southampton rebuffed all those overtures and are entitled to hold out for more as they feel Lavia is the best young player in the world in his position.
The trouble with bidding £111 million for Caicedo and being unable to close the deal means Liverpool’s search for value is much harder, especially as every club knows they are desperate to fill a particular position.
Whether the predicament now confronting Liverpool means they would have upped a bid for Lavia is plausible. They have denied an agreement has been struck with Southampton at £60 million and, as it stands, there have been indications from Lavia’s representatives that he wants to move to west London.
It could be that Lavia feels let down by Liverpool’s willingness to ditch him last week and go all in for Caicedo. However, the rationale of then joining the team who are signing Caicedo does not appear to make too much sense if the development of the player is the priority.
Then again, the question could simply come down to personal terms, with Chelsea willing to offer a bigger salary. Or maybe there is another twist to come, because much over the past week has rung ridiculous.
Still, if Liverpool’s instinct is correct and Chelsea are about to beat them to two targets, then that should unnerve Klopp. That they are in this position in the first place, the season having started with essential work still pending, is highly unusual. It is indicative of how the club’s decision-making, which for so long was a virtue, has become frazzled over the past 12 months in particular.
As pointed out previously, the Liverpool of 2017-2022 are very different to the club of 2022 onwards, not least in the behind-the-scenes changes which have led to the once-lauded think tank fragmenting and departing.
The instability of a third sporting director in just over a year — Jörg Schmadtke has arrived after Julian Ward departed 12 months after succeeding Michael Edwards — has coincided with the transfer market exploding for the very position they now need the most.
In the future, Liverpool must still find a way to compete in a world where loopholes and eight-year contracts are becoming the norm. They used to be the smartest in the market, so should they be kicking themselves when Caicedo moves for £115 million or £4.5 million?
Last summer, Liverpool were offered Enzo Fernández, who was at River Plate at the time and would have cost £15 million. They demurred, Benfica instead signed the Argentina star and sold him to Chelsea six months later for £105 million to begin the cycle of huge midfield transfer fees.
Back in the present, Klopp knows he must do something to rectify a design fault, although if he does not have an out-and-out No 6 at present, why play with just one player there when Liverpool are out of possession? Could 4-2-3-1 not provide stability in the short term?
There are players out there. Tyler Adams, for whom Chelsea backed away from a deal last week, has a release clause in his contract but missed a chunk of Leeds United’s relegation season with a hamstring injury.
Fulham have João Palhinha, who topped Europe’s top five leagues for tackles (148), tackles won (84) and duels won (288) last season. The 28-year-old is of a different age profile and missed the win over Everton at the weekend with the shoulder injury suffered in pre-season. He would command an enormous fee. There is Crystal Palace’s Cheick Doucouré, Andre of Fluminense, Fiorentina’s Sofyan Amrabat and many, many more to be found by amateur scouts on Twitter.
And so an exhaustive search for midfielders, which started with a failed bid for Aurélien Tchouaméni last summer when he joined Real Madrid instead and included Liverpool retreating from an approach for Jude Bellingham in April before his move to the Bernabeu, continues.
Where it will end, no one quite seems to know. And, for a club used to being proactive, not reactive, therein lies the problem.
2 Likes
Whoever we plan on signing next, we should maybe think to first seek Chelsea’s permission to make a move.
i know this is behind a paywall (which i subscribe to), but i decided this once to post the article in its entirety because folks are picking little sentences there and then posting them without context jus to get a rise out of folks…
4 Likes
What a saga…just a simple question…
Have we bought Lavia or not…
All I know is we’re dodging an awful lot of bullets
3 Likes
Relieved that both Caicedo and Lavia have gone to Chelsea. Lavia - I would have taken him but 50 million pound is pricey as I don’t see him superior to Bajcetic. Sangare, Inacio and Trindade should do. Trindade will definitely become a 100 million player. Quite surprised we aren’t after him. As the boce article attend we should have been after Enzo when he was 15 million not when he is 115 million. Atleast now trigger the clauses of Sangare/Inacio/Trindade and if possible Veiga. Solid signing all of them. Else we will be taken for a ride if we go after Gravenbach / Paulinho / Dacoure. We need neither of them.
That’s just a load of guess work with a few facts.
Spot on mate. It’s like Death Race movie. We are avoiding disasters. Hope sense prevails and we hire Edwards as a consultant atleast for this window!!
1 Like
Yes we did, that’s why we are all so happy.
1 Like
Also for your peace of mind…go read a book, watch a movie, go out for a walk or some exercise. Go for a concert. Go for a nice dinner (which does not involve staring at the phone).
Deals happening/not happening for us has ZERO correlation with your worry and anxiety, it’s only making you miserable.
2 Likes
exactly, jus his opinion really… but folks jus grab one or two snippets there and run to their little social media accounts and post that
1 Like
We cannot possibly know this. It is an idea that is only supported if you pick and choose what rumours what to believe, which ones to ignore, and assume there can be nothing else happening that we dont know about.
3 Likes
Ive been told what Lavia has been offered by Chelsea would make him our 6th highest paid player.
1 Like
Cheers…lets see what he does on the pitch eh!..I’m not worried or anxious or miserable…just some of the posts are tedious and non informative and also the 2 chappies involved seem to be playng a “who blinks first” game of lotto…as long as its over…see what the future brings
Yeah…and it’s happened enough that now I’m not excited to see 100+ posts on a transfer rumour thread.
catch u all later, when folks have calmed down a bit and the sky is no longer falling so to speak
1 Like