Chelsea unwilling to go above £80m for Moisés Caicedo — report

Moisés Caicedo was set to be one of the big stories of the summer transfer window, but so far, things have been fairly low key around the 21-year-old Brighton midfielder.

Arsenal were linked most strongly at first, but they seemed to get closer in January than now. Chelsea have been often mentioned, but so far that’s amounted to little more than some reported intentions of intents. Manchester United popped up recently while spinning their wheels with Mason Mount, but their status is even more tenuous than ours.

Much of this is probably down to Brighton’s asking price, which may be as high as £120m. They may have promised Caicedo a transfer this summer after convincing him to stay in the winter, but they didn’t have to promise to make it easy. And while there’s always a chance that Caicedo throws another fit, if potential suitors turn to other targets in the meantime, that won’t do much good either.

So perhaps we’re hoping that Moisés himself will start motivating the situation, with The Times reporting today that Chelsea are not willing to go above £80m, regardless of how much we might need him in our midfield.

It’s an interesting wrinkle, us trying to play a little hardball after being quite generous with our bids over the past twelve months.

Let’s see how this bold plan works out for us. (Not that £80m isn’t generous already.)