Kalidou Koulibaly

twosips said:
Koulibaly is only a month older than Van Dijk. He's just as complete as well IMO. For £80m i'd not complain, especially considering the level he could reach under Guardiola. I don't think this will happen, but I bet Liverpool don't regret the £75m they spent on VVD...
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Van Dijk was 26 when they bought him, and was pretty much a guaranteed instant success as he'd got 3 seasons experience in the league.

Koulibaly will be 28, has only played well in Italy, and does he even speak the language? It's impossible to be the leader at the heart of defence a la Kompany/Van Dijk if you can't communicate with everyone. We could quite feasibly spend 18 months waiting for him to get comfortable here and he'd be on the verge of 30 - or he could never settle in England.


He's a very good player, I'm not sure he'd be a very good transfer for us.
 
domalino said:
Van Dijk was 26 when they bought him, and was pretty much a guaranteed instant success as he'd got 3 seasons experience in the league.

Koulibaly will be 28, has only played well in Italy, and does he even speak the language? It's impossible to be the leader at the heart of defence a la Kompany/Van Dijk if you can't communicate with everyone. We could quite feasibly spend 18 months waiting for him to get comfortable here and he'd be on the verge of 30.
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Eh, age is irrelevant, again, the experience and composure counts. He may take time but it'll be worth it. Experience is squad is necessary especially after losing someone like Kompany, he could be a leader in a year, obviously there's staff and coaches to help him settle and he'll be able to communicate with that backline in no time, they speak football, that's all that counts
 
catalyst said:
Eh, age is irrelevant, again, the experience and composure counts. He may take time but it'll be worth it. Experience is squad is necessary especially after losing someone like Kompany, he could be a leader in a year, obviously there's staff and coaches to help him settle and he'll be able to communicate with that backline in no time, they speak football, that's all that counts
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Impossible to take any comment that starts with "age is irrelevant" seriously.

If you're investing £85m in an asset, age is very fucking relevant, espeically in a defender with exceptional pace being one of his stand out qualities.


If you spend 85m on Koulibaly and he's not a success, over 30 years old you will not see any meaningful amount of that money again.
If you spend it on a 21 year old, you can still recoup 30-50% after 3 mediocre years.
 
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domalino said:
Impossible to take any comment that starts with "age is irrelevant" seriously.

If you're investing £85m in an asset, age is very fucking relevant, espeically in a defender with exceptional pace being one of his stand out qualities.
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I agree age is relevant but I think people sometimes have a habit of overstating the importance of them being young (in terms of value for money). There definitely seems to be a trend towards players running their contracts down in order to receive huge wage increases and/or signing on fees. People talk as though if we sign De Ligt we'll have him for 10 years for the cost of the initial transfer fee. Given Raiola is his agent, you can't bank on him staying longer than 4 or 5 years. If he did stay longer, we'd pay through the nose to retain his services.

I haven't seen a lot of Koulibaly but from what I have seen he looks top class. He's only just about to turn 28 so should easily have 4 seasons left at the very top and probably five. If we're in for him on the premise we deem him to be one of the top few in the world then £80-90m for four or five years isn't terrible value. Same age we signed Fernandinho and I don't think we'd have felt short changed if we'd spent that for those peak years we've had out of him.
 
Mon Autre said:
I agree age is relevant but I think people sometimes have a habit of overstating the importance of them being young (in terms of value for money). There definitely seems to be a trend towards players running their contracts down in order to receive huge wage increases and/or signing on fees. People talk as though if we sign De Ligt we'll have him for 10 years for the cost of the initial transfer fee. Given Raiola is his agent, you can't bank on him staying longer than 4 or 5 years. If he did stay longer, we'd pay through the nose to retain his services.

I haven't seen a lot of Koulibaly but from what I have seen he looks top class. He's only just about to turn 28 so should easily have 4 seasons left at the very top and probably five. If we're in for him on the premise we deem him to be one of the top few in the world then £80-90m for four or five years isn't terrible value. Same age we signed Fernandinho and I don't think we'd have felt short changed if we'd spent that for those peak years we've had out of him.
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Raiola isnt De Ligts agent. Hes an intermediary helping his agent with this transfer.
 
domalino said:
Impossible to take any comment that starts with "age is irrelevant" seriously.

If you're investing £85m in an asset, age is very fucking relevant, espeically in a defender with exceptional pace being one of his stand out qualities.


If you spend 85m on Koulibaly and he's not a success, over 30 years old you will not see any meaningful amount of that money again.
If you spend it on a 21 year old, you can still recoup 30-50% after 3 mediocre years.
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There's risk associated to every signing? There always will be. You'd be naff to ignore how good Koulibaly is if you've seen him even for a couple games. Absolute giant and leader in that Napoli backline. Carried their defence for a fair while now. When Liverpool signed VVD they had similar risk too? If he turned out a flop would it matter? That's just the state of market and risk associated. I'm not saying we WILL go and sign him, actually think the links are rubbish. But I'd take him over signing a Maguire any day of the week. If we have the money and can afford him, definitely get him.
 
We are not a youth team, our model is to buy young before they hit their peak/highest value but it isn’t something we have to stick to religiously. For the right guy we will make exceptions. Fernandinho signed as a 28 year old that turned out alright. We have stones and Laporte for the next decade, Garcia coming up behind him, we need ready proven world class talent to replace the proven world class talent we’ve just lost. you have to balance the present and the future and experience is key to that.

We need a leader at the back, last season before Kompany came into the side, we had a period where we looked a bit unorganised and looked as though we could be got at, then Kompany steps in with his experience and leadership and we instantly turn into a side that only needed to score once as we knew we wouldn’t concede, we have to bring that in with whoever replaces Kompany as nobody else has that to the level we require. I don’t know if this guy does have that, that’s what our scouts are for but from the bits I’ve seen of him it looks as though he does.

As for the price, City won’t be afraid to pay it if they deem it value, we seemingly don’t want to pay £80 million for Maguire not because of the figure itself, but because he isnt one of the best defenders around and that’s what we would be expecting for that kind of money, it doesn’t mean we won’t pay that or more for somebody that is though.
 
catalyst said:
There's risk associated to every signing? There always will be. When Liverpool signed VVD they had similar risk too?
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My entire post was about how Van Dijk was much lower risk than Koulibaly....why not read it before replying?

It would save me repeating everything about him already being familiar with premier league, already very settled in England, already fluent in English etc. etc.
 
domalino said:
Raiola isnt De Ligts agent. Hes an intermediary helping his agent with this transfer.
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Ok fine, i've seen people say that so I probably shouldn't have worded it that way. My point still stands though. An agent of that ilk has been brought in for a reason and it wouldn't surprise me if he sticks around after that or is brought back in when needed. I don't think you can buy players aged around 20 these days and talk as though you're going to own them for the next 10 years without some significant further investment in them. I'm not saying it's not worth it, my point is just that a player who has only just turned 28 and is at their peak doesn't necessarily represent terrible value compared to a younger player.
 
If we're serious about pushing for the Champions League then I think that this is the single most important signing we could make. I'd say that he has been the best defender in the world over the past three seasons. If Leicester are not backing down on their demands for Maguire, and the club are considering spending 75m on him (which is doubtful), then I'd contend that it makes perfect sense to spend just a little bit more and bring in the real deal. Still don't think it'll happen though. AFAIK, Napoli have rejected enormous offers for him in the past.
 
domalino said:
Impossible to take any comment that starts with "age is irrelevant" seriously.

If you're investing £85m in an asset, age is very fucking relevant, espeically in a defender with exceptional pace being one of his stand out qualities.


If you spend 85m on Koulibaly and he's not a success, over 30 years old you will not see any meaningful amount of that money again.
If you spend it on a 21 year old, you can still recoup 30-50% after 3 mediocre years.
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How old was Mangala when we signed him? Not sure we are getting 30-50% of his original fee back.
 
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