Sierra: Caicedo felt dizzy by the scale of interest in him by Liverpool

The Moises Caicedo saga will go down as one of the most discussed non-transfers in Liverpool history and while at the time it looked to be a bitter blow, the Reds may well have the last laugh.

The Ecuadorian was viewed as one of the hottest properties in the summer transfer window and for a club like Liverpool who were undergoing their own midfield transformation, he was viewed as someone that would undoubtedly add quality as well as a pressing need in the holding midfield role.

But they were largely seen as not having the finances to compete with the likes of Chelsea for the Brighton player which was also believed to be a similar reason for pulling out of the pursuit for Jude Bellingham

However a few days before the new Premier League season kicked off, Liverpool surprised many in the game by putting a bid in for the player in the region of £110 million.

After a month of frustration where Liverpool had been somewhat static and their rivals making moves around them, this saw unbridled jubilation for those fans and a belief that they could reclaim their place very quickly amongst Europe’s elite after a substantial dip last season.

Manuel Sierra, the agent of Caicedo spoke to Ecuadorian news channel  (Football sin Cassette (per The Evening Standard) in great detail about those crazy couple of days in early August.

“ What happened is that in January [Chelsea] couldn’t pay.

“They couldn’t go crazy because they had to go with one or the other, they couldn’t sign both [Enzo Fernandez and Caicedo] and I didn’t know what Brighton were going to ask for. Brighton were not going to sell even for £1billion.”

While Chelsea was always viewed as the front runner, Liverpool’s bid certainly caused the Caicedo party to have a deep think about what to do next.

And Sierra confirmed that Liverpool had been in contact a great deal during the first few months of 2023 but nothing since May before the mammoth bid came in.

“The issue of not going to Liverpool instead of Chelsea was also questioned a lot.

“The offers were similar in every way, the issue was a question of values, principles and of giving the floor to someone. When Liverpool’s offer arrived, Brighton were asked for time so that Chelsea could match it, they did, they surpassed it and he ended up at Chelsea because he had given his word to Chelsea for quite some time.

“Liverpool were always interested. We had meetings between January and May but since May we didn’t hear from them. Of course we were surprised that suddenly they appeared with [an offer] that they had said they couldn’t do.

At the end of the day, Sierra believed it came down to the fact that Chelsea’s interest never waivered.

“It is very complicated, imagine that Jurgen Klopp is writing to you, that Liverpool are calling you, we are talking about something very big, one of the best teams in the world just like Chelsea - and with a more established and more stabilised project than what Chelsea have today which is a very ambitious project with a view to two, three years ahead.

“When Liverpool came and approached in that way, obviously Moises got dizzy, I got dizzy myself, but Chelsea were by our side at all times asking us to go, they wanted an hour to tell Brighton that they could match the offer. They gave them an hour and it ended after two days”

Business in the transfer market can be a real raffle, sometimes you may think you have got the player but it falls through at the last minute and vice versa, a deal may come from absolutely nowhere.

Liverpool have been on both sides of the coin over the journey and while the disappointment was clearly evident early in the aftermath of the Caicedo rejection, the Reds pulled it together and made a couple more signings.

While we have not truly seen the best of Japanese international Wataru Endo at this stage, the early evidence of Ryan Gravenberch is incredibly promising.

And with the earlier signings of Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister fitting in very nicely indeed, it means that Liverpool have emerged as a better overall team than what they went into the summer with.

And despite hundreds of millions of pounds spent, whether the same can be said for Chelsea and indeed Caicedo is well and truly up for debate.