With his move to Saudi Arabia, Neymar's conversion from actual footballer to Media Brand Project is now complete. This is a man who once promised to rival the greatest players of all time, but injuries and distractions have resulted in a career that has, in my opinion, decisively failed to live up to the hype. He has never reached his full (and astonishingly high) potential, and I doubt he ever will.
And Romeo Lavia is supposedly next on the Chelsea list. Having been gazzumped twice by Chelsea for their top CDM targets, where does Liverpool turn next?
We are living in a financial Wild West, and I have some sympathy with FSG and Klopp, in the sense that the injections of massive Middle Eastern sportwashing money make the transfer market really unpredictable.
FSG, for all their faults, are trying to work from an actual budget that hews closer to the spirit of FFP than Man City and Chelsea, and probably Newcastle. Their ownership project is not intended to be a 'loss leader' - for better or worse, they are treating it like an investment, and they appear to be genuinely trying to make the numbers add up. The reality is that FSG can afford to pay inflated prices for players - but other clubs can and are willing to pay even more inflated prices.
How Chelsea can do all this,
and still stay within the rules, I simply do not know.
Klopp and his team will have a plan B and C, but things change quickly these days and the club are obviously scrambling. I don't think we want to be using MacAllister as a number 6 all season - especially since even with him there we still have no additional cover in that position.
The way Chelsea are going about things just appears to be childish and it would be satisfying to see it backfire. They really do appear to just be throwing money at the problem. And I hate to sound cynical, but I assume Caicedo just preferred to live in London - pretty much all footballers do by the sound of it....they are among the few people who can afford it!
talksport.com
