Kalidou Koulibaly: Good news for Liverpool and Man City in defender pursuit
Napoli is willing to drop the asking price of world-class defender Kalidou Koulibaly.
The Italian side is in of need of money for a target they require to add their books before next season kicks off. According to The Telegraph, Napoli has made Lilli forward, Victor Osimhen, their priority target for the summer.
The fee for the breakthrough forward is said to be in the region of £70 million and having to fund the transfer the Naples’ club must offload a player/s. The player they are prepared to sell is star defender, Kalidou Koulibaly.
"Napoli will make Kalidou Koulibaly available for a move to the Premier League when they finalise a £70million deal for Lille forward Victor Osimhen.Koulibaly’s club are in talks to make Osimhen their marquee summer signing, with the clubs currently around £20million apart on their valuations but are expected to come to a compromise for the Nigeria winger to move for around the same price as Nicolas Pepe to Arsenal a year ago. (Via: telegraph.co.uk)"
Good news for Premier League clubs
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Both Manchester clubs and league winners Liverpool have all been named with the centre-back and expressed their interest in him for the past couple of windows. Previously stopping them from making an official bid or approaching Napoli for the player was the huge price tag of £100m.
If rumours, link, and transfer talks are true, this could amuse the aforementioned clubs to reignite their interest in the player. As it stands, United have their priority signings and it’s not Koulibaly at the moment.
If they are working on more important deals to bring in Jadon Sancho and Jack Grealish, then this leaves both the Reds and City in pole position to sign the player. Pep Guardiola needs the defender the most.
They have struggled to keep things neat at the back. They’ve lost nine games this season, removing them totally from the Premier League title race. When Aymeric Laporte was missing for a large part of the season, the Citizens struggled to win games.
Liverpool (25 goals), Leicester City (31 goals), Man United (33 goals), and Sheffield United (33 goals) have all recorded fewer goals conceded than Man City, who has conceded 34. The Manchester club’s EPL winning campaign the season prior saw them let by as little as 23 goals.
Liverpool’s sound defence continued across the last two seasons but they might offload Dejan Lovren and their only two defeats endured this season was both by three goals or more. They want to make sure they can mount a proper defending run and eradicate any slip-ups like this happening next season and seasons after.
The Reds were also caught out in defence when trying to defend their Champions League trophy. They let by 12 goals from the group stages to their final round of 16 games against Atletico Madrid. Klopp will worry about this and will be planning on how to change it up.
Related Story. Man City leads the race for Koulibaly. light
Napoli must sell
The player has one year left on his current deal at the Italian club. Napoli must sell this summer or they risk losing one of the world’s best defenders in the modern game for chump change or for free in 2021.
They know they are being ludicrous with their £100m demand and must drop the asking price. He recently turned 29-years-old and has plenty to offer any club he goes to. At £70m, the deal is looking a lot sweeter and realistic.