Moisés Caicedo is a reported Liverpool target and the 20-year-old could be the perfect project player for them. If Brighton let him leave.
Ecuadorian outlet Studio Fútbol claim that Liverpool are readying an offer for Brighton midfielder Moisés Caicedo. The 20-year-old made a real impression last season, returning from a loan halfway through the season.
Graham Potter immediately put him in the first-team, starting Caicedo eight times. That, of course, isn’t a great sample size when judging a player but the player has made an impression in that time.
Looking at his data, in fact, you see someone who could be an incredible project for Liverpool to work with.
Moisés Caicedo as a Liverpool player
Fbref uses Statsbomb data across Europe’s top five leagues to judge players by position. From there, they can put each stat into a percentile per those positions, with Caicedo judged as a central midfielder.
So with that in mind, Caicedo looks like an incredibly interesting player. Unique, even.
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There’s one overwhelming negative and the area where Liverpool would need to improve the 20-year-old. He only completes around 30 passes per 90 and around 80% of them. That’s the 19th and 41st percentiles respectively – not anywhere near the level the Reds want.
So if that’s the area to improve, what about the things he does well? There are a lot of those areas, after all – Caicedo is good at just about everything.
He’s 90th percentile for shots on target and 96th for the percentage he gets on goal. Caicedo may not pass much but he’s 79th percentile for passes completed under pressure – that’s a huge sign that he’s got the ability to become a fantastic passer.
Caicedo also makes three tackles per 90 (85th percentile), tackles 43% of players who try to dribble him (79th percentile) and his team wins the ball with 33% of his presses (80th).
His dribbling is outstanding, too, with Caicedo successful 71% of the time (86th) and carries the ball into the penalty area at the 80th percentile. Then there’s the fact that he’s fantastic in the air, winning 68% of his duels – that’s in the 97th percentile amongst midfielders in Europe’s top-five leagues.
Put it all together and you have a player who can do a bit of everything and is successful far more often than not. Being at all of these percentiles at 20 years old is quite incredible – and he should only get better. Get him passing the ball more and Caicedo could easily be a midfielder who does anything you need him to.
And in this Liverpool squad, he could be a dream.