Fabrizio Romano says Chelsea could sign Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia this summer as the transfer expert explained the delay in the Blues’ bid to sign Caicedo from Brighton.
Chelsea are looking to sign a midfield partner for Enzo Fernandez this summer and they’re in talks with Brighton over a move for Caicedo, who recently admitted he ‘can’t say no’ to the ‘beautiful’ Blues.
Talks have been ongoing for some time and Romano attempted to explain the hold-up, claiming this is not a ‘traditional negotiation’.
“The negotiations for Moises Caicedo is still ongoing because as I already explained, from what I am told, this negotiation between Chelsea and Brighton is kind of direct negotiation so it’s not traditional negotiations in terms of an official bid and official answer from the other club,” Romano said on the DeBrief podcast.
“We know they have Paul Winstanley, who was at Brighton, so he has a good relationship with the club and so they are trying to handle this one different way, for example, last summer was very difficult to negotiate for [Marc] Cucurella.
“The idea for Chelsea is to close this for around £70 million plus add-ons, or maybe £80 million, this has to be the package for Moises Caicedo. Brighton want more than this, so Brighton feel that can rise to something around maybe £90 million or £100 million.
“There is one crucial point, the player wants to go because Roberto De Zerbi told him in February when he signed a new deal that he had this opportunity to go and to find a new club in case they received a good proposal so I am sure that Moises Caicedo deal is going to be very concrete in the next days.”
Reports have suggested new Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino has considered alternatives to Caicedo, including Romeo Lavia, whom the Blues made a £50m deadline day bid for last summer and is now heavily linked with Liverpool.
But given Chelsea have lost N’Golo Kante, Mateo Kovacic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Mason Mount this summer, while Jorginho left in January, they may well need to make more than one midfield addition.
And Romano says they may well “put £50m on the table” for Lavia after they complete the signing of Caicedo.
He said: “When you have Chelsea for example. Chelsea are really unpredictable in the market.
“At the moment they are working on Caicedo but if they get him next week and then they still have space to do something in the midfield, so if they sell some more players in the next weeks, maybe they can say ‘okay, let’s put £50 million on the table and sign Romeo Lavia’. This can happen.”
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