Ex-West Ham striker Enner Valencia says he would have advised Brighton midfielder Moises Caicedo against making a public statement about wanting to leave the club.

Valencia is Caicedo’s captain at international level with Ecuador, and he admits he did contemplate getting in contact with the 20-year-old to offer some guidance:

“I looked for Moi’s number to call him, but I said no, I’m going to leave him alone. At certain times you need to clear your mind and think about things alone, with your family. If he spoke to me before, I would tell him not to publish that message.”

“It [should be] that everything is done in-house. The best way was to discuss it with his team, but he didn’t do it that way; I’m sure someone recommended it. This is surely a great opportunity and we all want him to do very well because of the kind of person he is.”

Arsenal and Chelsea have both been pursuing Caicedo, while he was also tentatively linked with a switch to the Hammers a couple of months ago, but his attempts at forcing a move seem to have failed. Valencia says he learned the hard way after trying to leave West Ham that such public fallouts don’t benefit anyone:

“They didn’t want to let me out and I didn’t even play. So Chalo (Gonzalo Vargas, his agent) had to go fight with half of England to let me out.”

Valencia ultimately got his wish after being loaned out to Everton in 2016 before completing a permanent switch to Mexican side Tigres almost a year later. He is now playing his football in Turkey for Fenerbahce, where he has scored 19 goals in 17 league appearances this season.