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Chelsea and Tottenham have both been in touch with representatives of Senegalese defender Kalidou Koulibaly, with Arsenal are keeping tabs on developments.
The towering Napoli centre-back was previously linked with a move to Manchester United when Jose Mourinho was manager at the club, but their bid for him was rejected by the Italian side. Instead they ended up paying a world record fee for a defender last summer when they bought Harry Maguire from Leicester City.
Previously Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis has insisted that the player is unsellable, but, with his club struggling in mid-table in Serie A, and having sacked manager Carlo Ancelotti and replaced him with Gennaro Gattuso, he may be forced to change his mind. He said “I loved Koulibaly the man so I refused €105m, but a time will come when I’ll have to sell him. “
Koulibaly joined Napoli from Belgian side Genk in 2014, and has gone on to make 226 appearances from them in all competitions, scoring ten times. He has been named in the Serie A team of the year four times.
Andy is an exiled English football fan living in Cyprus. He loves all sports but football is his abiding passion, and he still has dreams every now and then about scoring the winning goal in a Wembley Cup Final, even though his playing days are long gone. He follows most major leagues, across Europe at least, and has a favoured team in each. When he’s not watching, listening, reading or downloading podcasts about football, he spend his time worrying about his beloved Arsenal.