Brighton reject £60m bid for Moises Caicedo as Gunners look to beat Chelsea and Liverpool

Brighton have reject­ed Arse­nal’s £60million bid for mid­field­er Moi­ses Caicedo.

La Liga boss­es are now weigh­ing how much they will pay to sign the Ecuado­ri­an play­er before next week’s trans­fer deadline.

Arse­nal boss Mikel Arte­ta admit­ted this week: “We need more mid­field cov­er, but it’s pret­ty com­pli­cat­ed to do that in this market.”

But you don’t want to spend the rest of the sea­son just with Albert Sam­bi Locon­ga cov­er­ing Thomas Partei and Gran­ite Shaka.

And with Erne­ny out for a long peri­od of time with a knee injury, Arte­ta is con­sid­er­ing sign­ing anoth­er one this month to build the ros­ter he needs to stay in con­tention for the title.

But Brighton won’t give up the 21-year-old Kasei­do with­out a fight and have already reject­ed a £55million bid from Chelsea.

The South Coast club has a his­to­ry of refus­ing to enter nego­ti­a­tions before sell­ing Ben White, Marc Cucurel­la and Yves Bis­souma in the past, stick­ing with the ask­ing price.

Caice­do is said to be ask­ing for up to £100million, com­pared with £4.5million when he signed from Ecuado­ri­an side Inde­pen­di­ente del Valle two years ago.

It remains to be seen whether Arse­nal, who have just acquired Lean­dro Trossard from Brighton for £21m plus an extra £5m, will go for that figure.

They also bought Pol­ish defend­er Jakub Kiwiol from Spezia for £17.5m, with a pos­si­ble £3.5m.

But Arte­ta has been cleared to spend big mon­ey this month, know­ing the sell­ing club was will­ing to pay up to £88m for winger Mihai­lo Mudrik before he recent­ly signed for Chelsea. Noda.

Ever­ton’s Amadou Onana and Real Sociedad’s Mar­tin Zbi­men­di could be con­sid­ered replace­ments if Arse­nal fail to sign Caicedo.

But Arse­nal are expect­ed to at least make an improved offer for the tough Ecuado­ri­an World Cup star, and it looks like a deal could still be done before next Tues­day’s deadline.