Moises Caicedo has privately backed £25m player to join Chelsea

Chelsea star Moises Caicedo appears to be weighing in on the club’s transfer plans, with the midfielder apparently endorsing one player and privately urging Enzo Maresca‘s side to consider him as a transfer option.

Chelsea suffer second Brighton defeat in blow for Enzo Maresca

Maresca cut a frustrated figure from the sidelines on Friday evening, with Chelsea suffering their second defeat away to Brighton in the space of a week.

Yankuba Minteh’s brace and an opening goal from Japanese sensation Kaoru Mitoma condemned Chelsea to back-to-back defeats at the Amex, following their FA Cup exit at the hands of Fabian Hurzeler’s side last weekend.

Noni Madueke also picked up a serious hamstring injury, which Maresca confirmed will sideline the Dutchman for a long period. He now joins Marc Guiu and Nicolas Jackson on the treatment table, leaving Chelsea with a shortage of quality attacking players.

They didn’t have a single shot on target against Brighton, which makes for pretty grim reading, with Maresca now looking for a solution in the absence of Guiu, Jackson and Madueke.

“Hopefully we can [have] shots on goal, especially, for me because we arrive quite well at the edge of their box,” said Maresca on Chelsea’s missing attackers

“Quite clear, quite clean. The problem is then in the last third you need the ball inside the box, you need the player, and then the main one is always the No.9 inside the box.

“In this moment, Nico is not there, Marc [Guiu] is not there. We need to find a different solution. I think first half we had the Pedro [Neto] chance. We had two or three more in this moment that we could score that we miss. The bad feeling in this moment is that easily we can concede chances, and we struggle to create chances so we need find the balance on that.”

Moises Caicedo pushing Chelsea to sign Joel Ordonez

Off the field, BlueCo are plotting ways to strengthen the team and back Maresca. A lot of talk has already centered around Chelsea targeting another striker for next season, with RB Leipzig starlet Benjamin Sesko and Ipswich Town striker Liam Delap linked in the past week (Simon Phillips).

However, according to journalist Graeme Bailey, Chelsea are targeting Club Brugge defender Joel Ordonez to bolster their backline as well – sending scouts to run the rule over him during recent matches.

Valued at around £25 million, what is more interesting is Bailey’s claim that Caicedo is personally pushing Chelsea to move for Ordonez behind-the-scenes – with the 23-year-old apparently convinced that his international teammate is good enough to play for the club.

“Chelsea are keeping an eye on Joel Ordonez, the Brugge defender, they were at the game against Atalanta,” Bailey told The Chelsea Chronicle.

“We know Ordonez is a player Chelsea are aware of, they’ve looked at him before, and before he even moved to Belgium.

“We know he’s someone who Caicedo has really voiced his opinion about that he thinks he’s good enough. Ordonez is an interesting one, I wouldn’t move him out of the equation.”