I don’t think we can blame Brighton for that. It was Caicedo and his team that backed out. Brighton couldn’t force him to sign for anyone - they could only insist that he stayed. As it was, I can understand that they would rather have he money than a malcontent player and some shady characters around him.
I don’t think Brighton can be held in any way responsible for that.
From the way his manager spoke and the little tid-bits we have gotten from their board - it seems like their main priority was to make sure he was not a Brighton player at the end of this window. They don’t seem overly impressed with him/his entourage.
Bullet dodged?
We have paid record fees before for players that were arguably the best in their position who really wanted to be here. I must admit that I felt queasy when I saw the Caicedo bid. This club has been bankrupted once before and we have had players who clearly preferred the cushy lifestyle to any concept of career fulfilment. I’d rather not willingly go there.
A little of sour grapes but he had a history of being more Dembele than Henderson in terms of extra baggage and our no awkward characters quota would have been fully stocked had he come onboard.
I don’t see it quite like that in terms of Brighton’s conduct.
At the end of the day, Brighton accepted a bid that they were happy with (from us), and by reported accounts, our bid was only made once there was some indication from Caicedo’s camp that he’d take the deal.
Once our bid was accepted, Caicedo made it clear he was only interested in Chelsea, essentially leaving Brighton two options - get Caicedo back in, however that bridge was burnt by the players actions, or negotiate and strike a deal with Chelsea, cash in, and do what’s best for the team/club - which I think was the right thing to do.
Feels to me that Caicedo/his camp used our bid to push Chelsea on to get the deal done. Brighton did the right thing for them, and I don’t think it was in spite of us or anything. For all we know, Brighton are sick of Chelsea, and were gleefully happy to deal with us (we’ve had players go both ways of late) and in the end they still had to deal with Chelsea.
Edit
@Walshy07 just posted the below in the Owners thread - which is pretty much as I said above
https://twitter.com/Watch_LFC/status/1691395075815694336?s=20
I don’t know if I’d go that far, he’s a tremendous player but I do think there are legitimate concerns about the people he keeps around him.
Plus interest.
The way I see this… Once Brighton accepted our offer, common courtesy alone would dictate, they would have the player in attendance, and present the player to us for an informal chat…
This they failed to do…!
Instead they let him hole himself up in some unknown hotel hiding away… we had no chance after this
If we go after anyone now, I hope we don’t hear anything about it until he or they or them appear at the press conference.
More important I hope Chelsea doesn’t hear anything about it until he or they appear at the press conference.
165 million pound for Caicedo and Lavia is just insane. Had Thiago started on Sunday we would have won. I am more gutted that we lost the ruthless transfer edge we had under Edwards. I would just bring him back. He kind of bridged the gap between us and Cuty. There are rumours that he wanted Enzo and Bruno for Hendo & Milner but Klopp decided to overrule and one of the reason he left.
Would that be enough to Buy Thuram,Kone,Gravenberch and Trindade as we need to lock up some more of the transfer rumour threads.It’s getting kinda full in there.
Wait until January and it should be enough to buy 70 of the players Chelsea have brought this week
You are probably right, but even then, I’m going to go with the notion that all is fair in love and war.
So at that point, if we like a player that Brighton have scouted, and are about to sign, and think he could add to the ranks of players coming through at Liverpool, then we should get in there and sign them.
Edit:
Well bollocks! I just read the Barber quote above, so Brighton are nice guys after all.
Brighton haven’t done anything wrong here. They agreed a fee with us. Chelsea offered Caicedo a ridiculous contract that we can’t compete with. Brighton can’t force him to come here, and they’re not going to turn down 115 million.
I’d guess something similar has happened with Lavia. I don’t think we’ve actually put a 4th bid in, but Chelsea are offering him a contract that we won’t be able to compete with anyway.
I was critical of the club the other day but really, what can we do against that? 9 year contracts that are probably at least 250k a week, and a massive bung for their agents.
There are other players out there. They might not be as good, or as talented, but they can still do a job. As long as the club have sensible plans beyond those two players I won’t be critical any further, we are not the problem.
This all day long. We need the best player for us and Klopp, He’s not necessarily the player with the best stats or graphs. Granted we do seem to have been beaten to the cheese by a faster and smarter mouse. Twice.
Fixed.
Who cares? I think this farce makes clear that you don’t win anything for being nice when it comes to getting deals over the line. We need a bit more savvy and aggression when we are recruiting - the fact we left Moises to Chelsea back in January, despite our earlier interest so as not to upset our ‘relationship’ with Brighton makes no sense.