Moises Caicedo: Tchouameni and Cucurella are key in transfer talks

Robin Bairner

• Updated: 23 May 2023 09:09 CDT
• 3 min read

Brighton midfielder Moises Caicedo continues to make football transfer news headlines, with the Ecuador star subject to interest from Arsenal and Chelsea this January.

Both of the Premier League clubs have had offers knocked back by the Seagulls, with the Gunners’ approach of £60 million the latest to be turned down by the south coast outfit.

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Similarly, Chelsea have made a verbal offer of £55m, though this was said to be miles off what Brighton expect to receive for their tar man.

Publicly, Brighton are holding out for £100m for Caicedo but FootballTransfers’ understanding is that a deal could be struck around £75m should the structure of payments be favourable.

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Can a deal be struck for Caicedo?

There are two key benchmark players driving the negotiation of this deal: Real Madrid’s Aurelien Tchouameni and Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella.

From Brighton’s perspective, Cucurella is the more important yardstick. He was sold to Chelsea in the summer for £62m including bonuses, and their feeling is that if a deal is to be done, particularly with the Blues, Caicedo will have to go for a fee above that price.

From their perspective, this is a logical stance given the relative importance of the two players to the club – particularly at this important juncture of the season.

Ben Jacobs reports, meanwhile, that those close to the Arsenal side of the negotiations are holding Tchouameni as their standard.

The France international departed Monaco for Real Madrid in the summer in a deal that generated the second-biggest up-front payment of the summer. Only Antony’s transfer to Manchester United was worth more than the £70m (€80m) Los Blancos paid for the former Bordeaux star, whose price could rise to as high as £88m (€100m) if certain bonuses are triggered.

Liverpool could pay that figure for Darwin Nunez, too, but their initial payment outside of bonuses to Benfica was smaller.

Arsenal are using this initial payment that Madrid made as the price they do not want to go above in the Caicedo bidding. Indeed, Jacobs says they feel it would be "unreasonable" to pay more than this.

All this means is that there is a very small sweet spot Arsenal or Chelsea will have to hit if Caicedo is to complete a January transfer.