Perhaps I’ve not seen enough of Caicedo, only a handful of games, but is he really not that great on the ball?
I’d put De Jong squarely third in that list of 3.
Caicedo’s energy and athleticism is exactly what this midfield is lacking, he’d be a fantastic buy.
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Agreed.
De Jong has gone a bit stale at Barcelona. It’s a funny one whether its in part due to the situation around Barcelona, the last few seasons, plus his contract situation or perhaps the quality just isn’t quite there, and standards haven’t been reached.
Pedri and Gavi have also stepped in.
Aye for me Frenkie boy would be #1 on that list and 2nd after Jude.
Problem is the 220k a week wages he’s on, plus have Barca settled his financial dispute (god knows how a player his family and agent even let it get to this point) it’s not as if we’re talking a couple hundred quid here.
To make a comparison, I would say Thiago is great on the ball. Caicedo is nowhere near that. Caicedo is faster and stronger than Thiago, can do more miles and more sprints, and would close down a lot of the gaps that teams are finding in our midfield.
It’s a matter of degrees though. Caicedo can of course pass the ball, but relative to the other aspects of his game, his passing wouldn’t be why we are interested.
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It’s reportedly double that. The info that was leaked in the summer said Barca owe him nearly 90 million (euros) over the final 4 years of his contract. That shakes out at current conversion rates to about 400k sterling a week.
His struggles at barca need to be contextualized by how awful the club has been, but even being as generous as you can, no one should go anywhere near a player who hasn’t played good football consistently for now 3 and half years. It is also relevant though he failed to live up to expectations even before they started treating like shit. Ultimately he’s at his best in that deep play maker role and has been unable to force out Busquets from the role. I dont know whether Barca, as they’ve done before, misidentified what role he’s best at and thought he’d be able to play in a more advanced role, or whether they identified him as a replacement for Busquets and found out he wasnt able to force him out of the side. Either way, had he have made himself more indispensable the bigwigs at Barca would have found another target to be a shit to when trying to balance their books.
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What I think happened is…
Upstairs Barca wanted to sell him, he was one of the rare players they could get serious money for last summer. Ideally not, but he was viewed as someone they had to sacrifice.
The coaching staff wants to continue with him, because he’s a bloody good midfielder. The player himself obviously wanted to stay at Barca, realizing the situation and hoping that things can work out at Barca without him needing to go and generate money.
It didn’t happen and now I actually see him staying, plus it seems like this might be Busquets final season at Barca, so the need to keep or not sell Frenkie (regardless if he’s pulled deeper to play Sergi’s role or not, but he might) will increase.
Kessie was possibly the move to keep Barca secure if they indeed sell Frenkie and then have Pedri at LCM and one of Gavi/Kessie starting at RCM, depending also on the type of game.
Any top club in Europe would be dumb not to at least think about Frenkie if he’s on the market or something, but I doubt, if there’s not some new major shit happening at Barca, that he’s leaving. If he is, then probably to a different side. We still have Thiago, not getting younger of course, but our priority is to get more of a dynamic midfielder. Who can also play of course, though it could even be two. One more of a working one and another one who can work and also provide control (that main one could be our priority, Bellingham).
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A midfielder who can actually run would be great. Our once beautiful engine is fucked.
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1 for the future, 17 years old very highly rated currently playing in Brazil’s top tier. Vitor Roque
He is shite …
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We wouldn’t need to be talking about who’s next if the club didn’t leave it until 1 summer every 5 years to refresh the squad.
Like everything in life, there is an expiry…it’s up to you to know when that time comes.
For us this midfield expired 12 months ago.
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Did not expect anything else. Think Klopp will look at the next few results and injury situation in midfield and then he might sanction another panic buy or loan.
Actually I’m not even convinced there will be a second midfield signing if we can land Bellingham.
Klopp will be ‘concerned’ that two new midfielders will drastically reduce the minutes for Elliott, Bajcetic and Jones.
Do you think that minutes for the youngsters is more important than CL qualification?
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Did not say I don’t want us to sign two midfielders.
Maybe I should wait until after the important away games against Brentford and Brighton but personally I feel our midfield is good enough to end up in the Top4.
Then again I don’t see a midfielder at all in Elliott and Klopp certainly sees something big in him - so what do I know.
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Bugger all.
Just like the rest of us mate 
If he doesn’t want any more signings then he should sort out the same dysfunctional midfield he admitted he needed to improve last week of the summer window… what’s changed? On the pitch if anything it’s got worse…
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If, I am only saying if, we cannot get anyone in for midfield in January, because we already bought Gakpo for the forward line, then I am guessing that Klopp will utilize Ox for the midfield bodies until the summer. And he will be hoping that he and Keita can stay fit until the summer so they can then focus on buying the right player for the midfield.
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Oxlade has zero positional awareness so would make the midfield worse.
My only hope (shudder) is Keita staying fit, he’s got all the tools.
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