Liverpool facing fierce battle with Chelsea over capture of Moises Caicedo

Liverpool have agreed a British record transfer fee with Brighton for Moises Caicedo, but the Reds face a battle to land the Ecuadorian amid fierce competition from Chelsea.

Jurgen Klopp confirmed on Friday morning a deal has been struck which could see Liverpool pay in the region of £110million for the midfielder, who has attracted intense interest from Chelsea this summer.

Chelsea’s third and most recent offer for Caicedo was £80m, substantially below Brighton’s valuation of a player who they signed for £4m from Ecuadorian side Independiente del Valle in February 2021.

However, while Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi is resigned to losing Caicedo, Chelsea are not yet out of the running and will be mulling over whether to make a fresh bid as it is understood the 21-year-old Ecuador international would prefer a switch to Stamford Bridge.

Klopp wants to reinforce his options in the middle of the park with Jordan Henderson and Fabinho going to the Saudi Pro League last month while Naby Keita and James Milner also recently left the club.

They signed Caicedo’s ex-Brighton team-mate Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai from RB Leipzig but missed out on Jude Bellingham, who joined Real Madrid in June in a deal that could rise to £115m.

“I can confirm the deal with (Brighton) is agreed, whatever that means because we want the player and not any kind of agreement, we will see,” Klopp said.

“We are a club that doesn’t have endless resources, we didn’t expect a couple of things happening in the summer, like Henderson and Fabinho (leaving), stuff like this.

“We didn’t think about that before the summer, to be honest, and then it happened. We gave (attempting to sign Bellingham) a go and the club was really stretched. We will see