Liverpool have apparently hijacked the Moises Caicedo, deal right away from their premier league rivals, Chelsea.
The London team, Chelsea had been tracking the Ecuadorian midfielder since last year and made a substantive bid for him in the January window. That bid was rejected by his club, Brighton.
Chelsea had also come back this off season with new bids which were rejected by Brighton who insisted that the midfielder would only leave on a minimum £100m deal.
Now Liverpool have stepped in and made a decisive £110m deal with Brighton. Chelsea had made a lst miute offer for £100m. That again fell short of the Liverpool deal.
Jurgen Klopp, the Liverpool Manager, confirmed the deal had been agreed with Brighton.
This hijack would be seen as a direct blow to Chelsea who were hoping to get the Caicedo deal done in time for Sunday’s opening league match against Liverpool.
However, the player is yet to sign off on the deal with media reports indicating that Chelsea remains his preferred destination.
This makes the Liverpool/Chelsea game much more competitive as it would be seen as a grudge match by two teams aiming to upstage each other.
Chelsea had hoped to feature an all star midfield combination of Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez this season in the premier league.
Chelsea have a hugely revamped team with many talented young players on the roster.
For the midfield, they have stars like Chukwuemeka Carney, Enzo Fernandez, Connor Gallagher and the Brazilian prodigy, Andrey Santos.
These players would hope to fill the void left by the departures of established starters like Ngolo Kante who has gone to the Saudi Arabian League and the Croatian, Mateo Kovacic, who signed for current champions, Manchester City.
How Chelsea would line up on Sunday will only be known to Coach Mauricio Pochettino, who has taken the team on an unbeaten run of five games in the summer run-up of games in the United States.
