Liverpool Have Broken the British Record to Sign Moises Caicedo — How Did We Get Here?

Photo by Ulrik Pedersen/DeFodi Images via Getty Images

A whirlwind round of late-night bidding saw Liverpool gazump Chelsea to sign the Brighton midfielder for £110m(!) 

What the hell is going on.

Liverpool Football Club went from having zero recognized holding midfielders available to start the league season on Sunday to breaking the British transfer record in signing arguably the best holding player available.

After whispers emerged last week of yet another famous Liverpool hijacking, the last 48 hours saw the Reds reportedly enter the race for Brighton’s Moises Caicedo, despite the Ecuadorian international appearing set for a move to Chelsea following literally months of negotiations.

What some would label as gentlemanly brinksmanship and others would call a d*ck-measuring contest appeared to then ensue between Liverpool owner John Henry and Chelsea boss Todd Boelhy, with the Blues reacting to Liverpool’s affront with a cheeky bid for the Reds own target, Southampton’s Romeo Lavia, and the Reds responding by openly approaching Brighton to negotiate for Caicedo.

And Bayern Munich were involved for some reason...?

However it happened, a deal has been reportedly struck following a last-minute midnight bidding session in which Liverpool’s astronomical bid of £110m beat out Chelsea’s also ridiculous £100m offer. The net spend gang have been awfully quiet since.

That being said, we’re still filing this one under “Liverpool Transfers and Rumors” instead of “Liverpool Team News” until we see some leaning going on at Anfield. However, if the deal goes through, it would be a shocking turn of events that completely flips the summer transfer narrative on its head, that—until last night—had been blighted by the unexpected midfield summer demolition job punctuated by the shock departures of Jordan Henderson and Fabinho to Saudi Arabia.

Even the most ardent Reds supporters had trouble seeing the Reds competing for even the Champions League places this season, talk less of a contemplating a run at the league title. Now, all of sudden, a player who (convincingly) models his game after the imperious N’Golo Kante has joined a new look midfield alongside former teammate Alexis MacAllister and Dominik Szoboszlai and the Reds could now...countenance a title challenge?

We won’t get too far ahead of ourselves here at TLO Towers and will simply be content with knowing that with the likes of Curtis Jones, Stefan Bajcetic and Harvey Elliott filling out the engine room numbers, the Liverpool midfield rebuild that has caused so much consternation over the past year is arguably now complete.

Bring on the season.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com