WILL THE JANUARY TRANSFER WINDOW DELIVER?

In an interview with AS, Sierra was asked if any Spanish sides approached him about Caicedo, to which he replied: “Yes, Barca asked. Barca asked, but it was an inaccessible subject for them. It was clear. In the end, with the [Financial] Fair Play issue and so on, it was a complicated issue.

“But yes, they did ask us and well, that’s where it stayed. There was no official offer; there were only soundings. The normal thing in the markets.”

Barcelona have been hamstrung by financial issues off the pitch and ended up spending just €3.4m (£2.9m) in transfer fees during the summer window – the entirety of which was spent on Oriol Romeu, while Ilkay Gundogan and Inigo Martinez joined for free. Joao Cancelo and Joao Felix also signed on dry loan deals, and Barca opted to keep their powder dry on other expensive deals in order to wrap up the €40m (£34m) January signing of Vitor Roque.

As such, Barcelona would never have been able to rival Chelsea or Liverpool for Caicedo, with Brighton initially laughing off the Blues’ opening bids worth between £70m and £80m.