Chelsea jump in with £48m bid for Roméo Lavia — report

Throughout this summer transfer window, the expectation has been that Roméo Lavia would be joining Liverpool, who are in need of at least one more midfielder after letting Fabinho, Jordan Henderson, Naby Kiëta, James Milner, and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain all leave this summer — and having signed only Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai to replace them. (Great signings, mind you, especially my fellow Hungarian, but I digress.)

But Liverpool have failed to meet Southampton’s £50m asking price for Lavia three times now, with their latest bid falling short by £4m. And Chelsea have jumped into this situation with a £48m bid on Wednesday night, as per The Athletic. (Tyler Adams, your thoughts?)

Of course, Liverpool’s situation with Lavia closely mirrors our own situation with Moisés Caicedo, where we’ve fallen repeatedly short of the asking price set by Brighton & Hove Albion, who appear to be entirely unwilling to compromise (presumably much like Southampton).

It should be noted that we did make a brief pass at Lavia last summer, for also around £50m, before poaching Southampton’s youth recruitment guy instead in Joe Shields. So clearly we’re well aware of the 19-year-old defensive midfielder, who made 29 appearances in their relegation-bound campaign last season.

So, Caicedo or Lavia at half the price? Hmmm... (Or are we just doing So’ton a favor and enticing an acceptable bid from Liverpool? Hmmm...)