Another thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that Arsenal will be calculating the cost of the deal with a figure that includes the transfer fee + wages . The important figure is the total cost, considering only the transfer fee doesn't make sense.
In this case, Caicedo will be paid a lot less than say someone like Haaland, or even Mudryk when Chelsea decided to go crazy. He's on £3.5k/week at Brighton - he's not going to be on mad money here (Arsenal will know exactly what salary he's after). So, the total cost of the transfer is much lower than the Haaland or Mudryk deals, even though the Norweigan's transfer fee was much lower that what we've offered Brighton for Caicedo.
It's not just because of their potential to improve that young players go for massive money, its also because if you sign them before they're world class, you have a significant period of time when you're not paying them the £850k/week that City pay Haaland (just as Dortmund benefitted from a world class player for at least two seasons whilst paying Haaland nothing like what City are - or any team would have to).
