CAICEDO DREAM SPOILED – BUT DON’T LET IT TAINT THE RICE!
AI RICE
It’s starting to look like Caicedo has VERY weak sauce agents. The player moved to Brighton on £180k a YEAR, he pushed for a move to Arsenal in January, didn’t get it – then seems to have signed a new deal without a release clause.
Chelsea ITKs are reporting Tony B (Brighton owner) is asking for £120m this summer. Can you blame him? Monaco landed 80m euros from Madrid last season for Aurélien Tchouaméni. A Premier League-ready #6 with numbers like Caicedo SHOULD be getting a big fee.
But… that sort of ask is mad and only three clubs in the league could go to that number. United, City, or Chelsea. For me, unless you are going for the most specific sort of player in existence, I think you’re better placed getting two top-tier players for that price and I’d imagine that is more the vibe of KSE.
The sad part about this is twofold.
- I think if we’d landed Caicedo in January, we’d not be in the mixer for Declan Rice right now. I think it was always an either/or situation and the rumors of Ricedo that we’ve fallen in love for might never have been real.
- The loss of Caicedo now feels like my heart has been broken – and that weirdly taints the fact that we seem to be the number 1 choice of Declan Rice.
Number two worries me – we need to keep this in perspective: Arsenal being in the mixer for a player of his caliber is MASSIVE. We never get ready-made England internationals like Rice. This is HUGE for us. Don’t be sad with just Rice; we can find another high-quality 6, or just keep Partey who was brilliant 80% of the season.
There’s also some friction in the air because fans don’t understand that negotiation is NOT about getting your first bid accepted. If that happens; generally, you’ve paid too much for something. Arsenal is working for itself, not West Ham. Money ain’t cheap these days – KSE will want to spread payments over the longest period, they’ll want bonuses to be totally unacceptably hard to attain, and they’ll want to move fast. A negotiation is splitting the difference and making sure everyone feels a winner.
The counter-rumor to our 80m + 10m deal is that Manchester City are going to come in hot with cash PLUS Kalvin Phillips.
Could you think of a more powerfully symbolic offer for Rice?
‘Hey West Ham, we’d like to offer you Kalvin, who didn’t make a Premier League start until May, in exchange for you #6 who will replace him on the bench unless Rodri blows out a knee’
Some folk online are saying that West Ham will sell to the highest bidder – well, if the player really wants to stay in London because he wants his wife to be near both families, then the player just won’t leave this summer.
West Ham needs to rebuild an aging squad NOW. They have a gentlemen’s agreement with the player. It is not in their interest to let this drag our or pretend that the player is going to change their minds.
This is just a negotiation – and Arsenal trying to get a good deal is par the course.
That said – could our execs not have spent the last 3 months ironing out the price so they didn’t need to go into fax-to-fax price battles in June.
Who knows – I’m sure there’s a reason we do it this way. It’s just odd that Liverpool tends to have these things tied up neatly a lot earlier.
The Kai Havertz reaction yesterday was silly. Thomas T said he’s a bit Bergkamp/Berbatov-like. If you want to tell me both he and Arteta don’t know what they are looking at – I am going to say you are WRONG.
The thing with that move that is interesting me is this: Is he an alternative style of a 9? Or is he a galaxy-brain #8 to replace Granit Xhaka? He has more pace, he carries the ball better, and he’s a brilliant passer of the ball. I mean, who cares, the guy can play across the frontline, he’s been poorly used at Chelsea, he’d be a very unsexy signing that will no doubt come good… a bit like Odegaard was.
PREMIER LEAGUE fixtures are in and I think our little Spurs fan programming them did a good job.
Topline – we have a decent start.
The roughest H1 fixture is Spurs after a Champions League game. BUT, at least it’s a home game. I just don’t like they have a week to plan for us. But I guess that is the cost of being a CL club.
I’ll do more analysis of the fixtures when I have more time. Matt and Johnny discussed it on the podcast today, so get a fix there.