Moises Caicedo and Chelsea’s horror night highlights Liverpool’s lucky escape

In Klopponomics, £111m was more than enough for Liverpool to buy Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Gini Wijnaldum and Andrew Robertson. Or £111m was enough for the biggest, and weirdest, bid of the Jurgen Klopp years. The summer offer for Moises Caicedo seemed Liverpool’s fever dream, their lurch into the world of Todd Boehly. Caicedo, Klopp rationalised this week, already had an “emotional agreement” with Mauricio Pochettino and Chelsea. Liverpool’s surprise offer at least ensured the financial agreement cost still more: some £115m.

A lucky escape for Liverpool may prove an expensive mistake for Chelsea. A glimpse of what Liverpool could have had can render them grateful for what, and who, they do. Caicedo’s belated first appearance at Anfield this season consisted of a series of indignities and spells of anonymity. There are times when it is a compliment to say defensive midfielders went unnoticed; but when bypassed, overrun or overpowered, Caicedo was a non-presence.

When he played a part in a Liverpool goal, it was not in the way Klopp envisaged when he tried to smash their transfer record. It did, however, involve an old ally: in a symbolic moment, a microcosm of the match and the season alike, Caicedo lost out – and lost the ball – and his former Brighton sidekick Alexis Mac Allister won it, enabling Luis Diaz to release Conor Bradley for Liverpool to double their lead.

Mac Allister has helped render Liverpool one of the winners of last summer’s transfer market. His £35m price was more typical of Klopp; good for the balance sheet and on the football pitch alike. He had partners who went for over £100m each, in his Brighton teammate Caicedo and his fellow Argentina World Cup winner Enzo Fernandez. Predictably, Chelsea, with their clueless capacity to inflate prices, were the buyers of each.

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They are the £222m odd couple, each failing to bring the best from the other, neither replicating his form for his previous club. In theory Chelsea, with the most expensive midfield double act in history, ought to have the best pair in the Premier League. In reality, they, and Conor Gallagher, were blitzed by Liverpool’s £95m trio of the summer signings Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai, plus the homegrown Curtis Jones; precisely the sort of player Boehly would try and sell for pure profit in the books, but one who Klopp has nurtured and improved.

Propelled by them, Liverpool had 10 shots in the first quarter, though Chelsea had a duo who really ought to provide their defence with a deluxe level of protection. They were not all due to failings in the midfield, as Liverpool looked for diagonal passes and balls over the back four, but an indictment nonetheless.

Such resistance as the Ecuadorian and the Argentinian offered ensured they were twinned in Paul Tierney’s notebook. Caicedo was cautioned after 11 minutes, caught on the wrong side of Diaz, chopping him down. Fernandez followed before half-time, sending Jones flying. They were snapshots of their struggles: out of position, off the pace, unable to cope with Liverpool’s vibrancy.

Mac Allister could cut Caicedo out with a pass. Darwin Nunez could burst beyond him. When Liverpool’s attacking midfielder scored, Szoboszlai heading in Bradley’s cross, Caicedo was conspicuous by his absence. It was his final non-contribution: he was promptly replaced by Carney Chukwuemeka. Chelsea were better without him, with Fernandez installed as the deepest midfielder.

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If one mystery about Caicedo is his price – terrific as his one season as a regular for Brighton was, it represented a small body of work to command such a big fee – another is how he somehow seemed to lose a yard of pace on the M23 that separates Sussex from London, to lose the physical power that appeared to render him so formidable.

Thoughts turned to his predecessor, the hyperactive, brilliant N’Golo Kante, so often Chelsea’s big-game player; even £115m, it appears, is not enough to replace Kante. But another damning comparison was with his former partner.

It was a night to suggest Chelsea didn’t even buy the best midfielder at Brighton last season. Mac Allister was magnificent, playing in the position Caicedo would have occupied had he joined Liverpool. Mac Allister is more of a regista than a destroyer. He is more Pirlo than Gattuso. Klopp feels he can play as a No 6 when the team is compact, when the distances are small. He reads the game wonderfully well and, without possessing obvious bite, won eight tackles on a night when Caicedo won none.

As Chelsea were battered and buffeted, with Caicedo powerless to resist the tides of Liverpool attacks, with the club he chose to join mired in 10^th, the one he rejected five points clear at the top of the table, Caicedo offered an inadvertent reminder that part of the defensive midfielder’s job is to make the right choices. Another is to be in the right place at the right time. And as he made it to Anfield, five months after Liverpool’s offer, Caicedo really wasn’t.