Chelsea, Brighton & Hove Albion continue Moisés Caicedo dance

The summer saga of Moisés Caicedo continues to summer-saga on, with Chelsea and Brighton still in talks over a potential transfer and still appearing to make no tangible progress.

However, the landscape seems to be shifting in our favor, thanks largely to the actions of other teams. Arsenal may have set the market by dropping £100m on Declan Rice, just as Chelsea had dropped £100m+ on Enzo Fernández in January, but there are currently no other teams willing or wanting to spend that much on another midfielder. Manchester United went the Mason Mount route, Liverpool opted for Dominik Szoboszlai (bit jealous of that, mind), and neither Manchester City nor Newcastle United are in the picture, which means that Brighton have no team to leverage against Chelsea at the moment to drive up Caicedo’s transfer value.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Brighton have to give in just yet, with well over a month still to go in the transfer window.

Chelsea tested their resolve with a £70m bid recently, but that was reportedly rejected yesterday. The two teams face each other on Saturday in Philadelphia, so perhaps we can chat in person.

Meanwhile, the wild card in all this could be Caicedo himself. He already showed in January that he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty and start playing the usual holdout games to force a move, so perhaps it will take something like that from the 22-year-old to motivate a resolution.

Listen, he can just switch locker rooms this weekend, and we’ll be cool.

Pochettino isn’t stressing too much ... yet.

But he would like a speedy resolution as well.

“All of the team are working very hard to get what we want. I don’t want to speak about specific names [but] I want the right profiles to come in and improve the squad. As soon as possible is better than later but we need to work really hard for the target we have. Arrive today is better than tomorrow but we know it’s difficult.”

-Mauricio Pochettino; source: Football.London

Maybe secret agent Cucu can put in a good word, too, not that Caicedo needs any convincing to join us at this point.

“I’ve read in the media that he wants to come here a lot of times! I have a good relationship with him. He is a top player and if he came here I think we would have a top midfielder for a long time.”

-Marc Cucurella; source: Evening Standard

While it seems like it’s just a matter of time before Caicedo wears a Chelsea shirt, you never really know until it actually does happen. And even then, sometimes it’s not guaranteed.

So let’s summer-saga on.