Marc Cucurella is a £60 million player – at least
Depending on which “in the know” Twitter account you read, Brighton are open to selling Marc Cucurella this summer for a fee ranging anywhere between a bag of magic beans to £45 million.
Some of the figures being bounded about have been absolutely laughable. The rumour mill kicked off in May with one article suggesting that Spurs would get Cucurella for £17.1 million.
Yes, because Tony Bloom is going dance around the Amex boardroom at the prospect of making a £2.1 million profit on a 23-year-old who has enjoyed an outstanding debut season in the Premier League, winning Brighton Player of the Year along the way. £2.1 million!
The most commonly quoted figure has been £30 million but this too seems a long way short of Cucurella’s value to Brighton. That highest number of £45 million comes from links with Manchester City.
If the Premier League champions are interested with their billions of petrodollars ready and waiting to be sportswashed, then surely Bloom will look for north of that amount too from a club who two years ago were happy to pay £41 million for Nathan Ake from Plucky Little Bournemouth.
How much can Brighton expect to get for the services of Cucurella then? It is not so much a million dollar question as a sixty million pound question. The Albion should not consider selling for a penny less.
To those not familiar with Cucurella’s talent, that might seem like an astronomical figure. Brighton though hold all the cards here.
Cucurella still has four years remaining on his Albion contract, so Bloom is under no pressure to sell. Everything that we have seen from Cucurella so far suggests that his attitude is exemplary; he seems unlikely to rock the boat in the event that Brighton refuse to take the money of one of the European Super League Elite Six this season.
He also happens to have the potential to be one of the best full backs in the world. At 23-years-old, he is only going to get better. Brighton have already eked improvement from him, despite him being a young man arriving in a foreign land where he did not speak the language.
His numbers at both ends of the pitch have been ridiculous. Cucurella sat third for most chances created from open play by a full back in 2021-22 behind Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson. He made the third highest number of tackles after Tyrick Mitchell and Stuart Dallas. He is as good going forward as he is in attack.
Cucurella is versatile too. Following the sale of Dan Burn to Saudi on Tyne in January, Graham Potter began deploying Cucurella as a central defender in a back three – a role he had never played in his life.
Within five months, he looked totally at home in his new position. To learn on the job in the high pressure environment of the Premier League is testament to his talent and intelligence as a football player.
And this versatility – being able to play left back, left wing back and more centrally – further increases his value. Any club who signs Cucurella is effectively getting three players for the price of one.
The past eight years show that Bloom is not a man who sells unless the deal is hugely favourable to the Albion. Ever since trying to reshape Brighton on a tight budget in the summer of 2014 with decisions like replacing Leonardo Ulloa with Chris O’Grady, Bloom has been a reluctant seller.
That shambles of a season under Sami Hyypia and then Chris Hughton provided a valuable lesson in why you cannot afford to get rid of loads of your best players in a couple of transfer windows and expect things to go well.
Since Ulloa left for Leicester City for £8 million, Brighton have sold only one other first choice player they would have preferred to keep – Ben White.
Arsenal opened the bidding at £30 million last summer. Bloom eventually extracted £50 million for White. That was a good fee for an England international with high resale value.
Whisper it quietly, but Cucurella is better than White. Yes, White had the homegrown player premium attached to him but even with that, if he is a £50 million player then so is Cucurella at the very least.
Brighton also possessed a strong roster of defenders capable of covering for the loss of White. That would have made selling him easier. Cucurella is nowhere near as easily replaced. He is something special.
Selling Cucurella may be further complicated by the interest in some of his Brighton teammates and their contract situations. It seems unlikely Bloom will want to lose more than two of his stars in a single window.
Yves Bissouma seems certain to go, or else the Albion risk him walking away for nothing next summer. Better to take £35 million for the midfielder now than get zilch in a year.
Leandro Trossard and Alexis Mac Allister are in the same boat. Andy Naylor has said that the club are relaxed about Trossard as he has a clause in his deal which allows Brighton to extend it be a year. Whether Mac Allister has the same is less clear.
Trossard, Mac Allister, Robert Sanchez, Adam Webster and Tariq Lamptey have all been linked with big money moves this summer. If one of them were to be the second player Brighton cash in on, then the chances of Bloom sanctioning the sale of Cucurella will further diminish.
It is certain that Cucurella will leave the Albion at some point for bigger and better things. If City, Chelsea, Spurs or anyone else for that matter wants it to happen this summer, then they are going to have to make Bloom an offer he cannot refuse.
The dream scenario in all this is that Cucurella does not go anywhere until at least 2023. He spends 2022-23 getting even better, helping Brighton qualify for Europe before moving on for an even bigger fee.
£65 million should be only the start.
