The worst part about Brighton being successful? Transfer windows
There is not much to miss about the days Brighton were a League One side playing at Withdean Stadium. The bacon baguette van, being able to share a season ticket with a friend or family member if you could not go and Starburst not costing £3.20 a bag are instant aspects of being a lower division club playing at the Theatre of Trees which come to mind as worth mourning.
With each day that passes of summer 2023, the transfer window becomes an increasingly tedious part of being a successful Premier League club. Does anyone else yearn for a simpler time, when Brighton were not powering the relentless rumour mill?
Every hour, another “BREAKING” or “EXCLUSIVE” story appears about Moises Caicedo. From Twitter to Instagram to Facebook, wherever you go, you cannot escape.
It would not be a surprise to hear that someone with “connections” to Caicedo is using the live chat in the Spinia mobile casino app to pronounce his next destination and asking price set by Tony Bloom.
Even though it is common knowledge Bloom never sets an asking price; it is instead up to the buying club to keep bidding until they hit upon a number the Albion owner likes the look of.
If you collate every single “in the know” account and the information they have shared since the start of June about Caicedo, then the Ecuador international is moving to Chelsea or Manchester United or Arsenal for a fee of £65 million or £70 million or £80 million or £100 million or £120 million.
Caicedo definitely wants Chelsea and has agreed verbal personal terms. Even though his agent has said a deal is a long way from being struck.
Oh, and if United come in then he would prefer to move there as a boyhood fan. In which case the verbal agreement with Chelsea would be breached. If it even exists.
Hang on, let’s talk about Arsenal for a minute. Caicedo had his heart set on a transfer to the Emirates in January. He might still go there if the Gunners retain an interest. Presumably breaching an agreement already made (or not) with Chelsea and breaking his own heart by ignoring Old Trafford.
Confused? Bored? What we can tell from the fact that Caicedo is definitely moving to three different clubs for fees differing by a range of £55 million is that nobody actually has a clue what is going on.
The transfer of Alexis Mac Allister to Liverpool was concluded relatively quickly, meaning a long and drawn out transfer saga full of contrasting nonsense was largely avoided.
We say largely, because even with that Mac Allister deal there was still time for claims and counterclaims to be published.
Central to that were Fabrizio Romano and Andy Naylor, who seem to have developed some bizarre rivalry whereby the Brighton correspondent at The Athletic contradicts almost every thing everyone’s favourite Italian “transfer expert” says in what has essentially become a willy-waving contest.
Romano said Mac Allister to Liverpool was close. Naylor tweeted that Brighton had not received contact from the Reds and were not expecting any. Within a few days, Mac Allister was confirmed as a Redman. Romano won that battle.
Naylor though had come out on top with his assertion that Caicedo would not be for sale at any price in January, despite Romano being pretty insistent Arsenal would get their man. Naylor won that battle.
You could argue their initial clash last summer was a draw. Romano initially pushed Marc Cucurella to Manchester City. Naylor said City would not get their man unless they paid a fee far beyond what they were bidding.
This proved to be true. But then Chelsea came along and bought Cucurella for £62 million. Even the Albion got involved, sending out a somewhat cringeworthy tweet saying: “CLUB STATEMENT: MARC CUCURELLA. Contrary to inaccurate reports from numerous media outlets this evening, no agreement has been reached with any club to sell Marc Cucurella.”
CLUB STATEMENT: MARC CUCURELLA.
Contrary to inaccurate reports from numerous media outlets this evening, no agreement has been reached with any club to sell Marc Cucurella.
— Brighton & Hove Albion (@OfficialBHAFC) August 3, 2022
Cue Chelsea mocking the Albion when the deal was actually done, announcing Cucurella moving to Stamford Bridge: “CLUB STATEMENT: MARC CUCURELLA. Following reports from numerous media outlets this week, we can confirm an agreement has been reached with Brighton and Hove Albion for the signing of Marc Cucurella”
CLUB STATEMENT: MARC CUCURELLA.
Following reports from numerous media outlets this week, we can confirm an agreement has been reached with Brighton and Hove Albion for the signing of Marc Cucurella.
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) August 5, 2022
All this increased interest in Brighton transfer activity has led Romano to become public enemy number one amongst a number of Brighton fans.
This represents another tedious strand of transfer windows – those Albion supporters who screech “charlatan” whenever Romano links a player away from Brighton, but who hail his every word as gospel when it comes to an incoming transfer.
And Romano does his fair share of reporting possible Brighton buys. He was amongst the first to put into the public domain that Brighton were after Joao Pedro and Mahmoud Dahoud, both of which turned out to be 100 percent accurate.
The vast majority of internet rumours about incoming players, however, are total bollocks. There is a direct correlation between how good the Albion’s recruitment of young players from around the world has become in the past five years and the club being linked with every half-decent individual under the age of 21 from Europe to South America.
Of course, this is not surprising. Having seen the way in which Brighton have mined Caicedo, Mac Allister, Kaoru Mitoma, Julio Enciso, Facundo Buonanotte and the rest, it is easy to assume that any wonderkid is now on the radar of the Seagulls.
Peter Finn of this parish has taken up the almost impossible task of tracking these potential new signings. Since the transfer window opened, the Albion have been linked with 17 attacking midfielders alone.
Sometimes, a rumour is so far-fetched as to stray from being boring into the territory of comical. See the Twitter account with under 10 followers which posted the claim that Brighton were in talks with Manchester United over England international Jadon Sancho.
This ridiculous story ended up making its way onto local news websites in both Sussex and Manchester, including the line: “One major stumbling block for the Sancho deal might be his wages. His current United deal, which runs until June 2026, earns him £350,000 a week.”
Yeah, can see why that might be a stumbling block; just the 80 percent wage cut required to get Sancho within the Albion’s pay structure.
Sancho is a name every Brighton fan has heard of. Many of the links are not. Teun Koopmeiners, Maxime Lopez, Arthur Melo, Orkun Kokcu, Malik Tillman, Davide Frattesi, Denis Zakaria, Reo Hatate… how many did you know before they were hailed future Seagulls?
Being a successful Premier League club means the Albion are saturated with tittle tattle on an hourly basis. Gone are the days when it was one link a week to a striker from Rochdale on a free transfer, which whoever was Brighton manager at the time would subsequently be questioned about.
If you were to ask De Zerbi about every player the Albion have been linked with this summer, it would end up being a piece of work longer than War and Peace.
It is a far cry from when you could go on North Stand Chat and start a thread suggesting Brighton wanted to sign winger Ryan Smith from Millwall, know Naylor would read it and then end up asking Micky Adams about a potential transfer.
Which is exactly the position Micky Adams found himself in during the summer of 2008. When asked about Smith, Adams had to tell Naylor: “He has done well at Millwall and has the potential to be a good player but he is not somebody that has been on my radar.” Because the whole thing was invented by a bored 20-year-old in Mid Sussex.
A thousand links a week and hundreds of Twitter accounts claiming to be in-the-know is seemingly the price Brighton have to pay for success. Roll on September when the nonsense is over.
