What do Manchester United do when things get tough on the transfer market? Well, they turn to their trusty and reliable Jorge Mendes, of course.
This is what Italian journalist Ciro Venerato was reporting over the weekend, relayed by Area Napoli, as he gave Rai Sport an update about the Kalidou Koulibaly situation.
If you read most of the reports coming out of Italy on our great website, you’ll probably know that Manchester United and José Mourinho have already tried to sign the Senegalese star from the Serie A club recently.
Whether you believe that or not is up to you (we wouldn’t recommend doing so), but that’s what’s been claimed, and their first attempt didn’t work out.
Aurelio de Laurentiis isn’t interested in selling his best defender in January, and he’s having to fight off a lot of suitors to avoid that.
According to Venerato: “Juventus have stepped away, Mourinho’s United have turned to Jorge Mendes, Chelsea have Sarri as manager and Real Madrid have contacted Napoli directly”.
So, what we can take from this is three clubs are after Koulibaly, and only Madrid have tried the direct approach.
It seems Chelsea are banking on Koulibaly wanting a reunion with his former manager at Stamford Bridge, while Mourinho has asked his agent to try and get something sorted.
Mendes knows Napoli well, seeing as he’s Faouzi Ghoulam’s agent, so he’ll have direct connections to the Italian club.
Whether that helps him or Mourinho remains to be seen, but Venerato did make it clear that De Laurentiis would require a sum of around €130-150m before considering letting Koulibaly go.
That amount ‘would allow him to pull off a five star transfer window’.
