Il Mattino on Tuesday decided to get the Liverpool fanbase all excited by claiming the Reds had chatted with Kalidou Koulibaly’s agent, Fali Ramadani.
The story, while exciting as a headline and revealing an interest, didn’t actually have any groundbreaking information, merely repeating Napoli’s stance on the matter, which is putting off everyone around Europe.
Aurelio de Laurentiis isn’t exactly keen on selling his star player, and he’s made that very clear to the footballing world, with the same reply given to Liverpool.
Down their end, the Reds are said to have ‘put the information in a drawer’ for now as the numbers mentioned by Ramadani (somewhere around €110-120m) didn’t excite them.
Il Mattino state Napoli want that all in cash unless they can get a ‘very appreciated counterweight’ as part of the deal, thus agreeing to lower the asking price.
Now, it’s worth pointing out the Serie A side did make contact with Dejan Lovren’s agents, but what is the Croatian really worth on the market these days? €20m?
That would simply lower the price to €90-100m, which is still too much for Liverpool, who are looking for someone to compliment Virgil Van Dijk, not replace him.
Il Mattino don’t mention who said player could be, but with Napoli keen on Jordan Veretout a month or so ago, perhaps someone like Georginio Wijnaldum would do the trick?
Inserting the Dutchman in the negotiations could drastically reduce Koulibaly’s price, yet something tells us Jürgen Klopp won’t be too open to losing a key squad member like the 28-year-old when he already has Joe Gomez at his disposal to partner Van Dijk in the long run.
At this point, it’s hard to see Liverpool, or anyone for that matter, getting the Senegalese defender this summer.
