Kalidou Koulibaly

[Phil1]

His age doesn't bother me one bit and I don't understand why it would anybody else. 29 is a great age for a CB.
Wherever he's the right player is another story and I won't pretend to know the answer because I've seen him maybe a dozen times. He's one of those who looks perfect on paper but as we all know the game isn't played on paper.
The only thing I'm sure of is we are in desperate need for a replacement for Garcia and hopefully Otemendi.

 

[ctid1894]

Potentially better signings than Koulibaly most probably exist but Koulibaly is right now the most proven among the options and given that Pep is running out of time here we go for the most proven in order to have a good chance to win the league and the CL. Every transfer is risky to some extent. Money shouldn't be a big factor, especially with expected sales of Stones, Ota, Zinch, some loaned out players, youngsters and Sane's departure. It's very difficult to identify the next great CB and be sure he will hit the ground running. Even a talent like de Ligt had problems last season. So, we pay for someone already proven.

We will win the Champions League whether it's next season or in 5-10 years who cares, this desperation to win it now is all a bit deluded for me. You certainly don't buy a player because you're scared a manager might only be here for a couple more years. We were successful before Pep (Mancini and Pellegrini), during Pep and I'm sure we will be long after Pep has disappeared into the wilderness.

Yes I want to win it now too, who doesn't but you don't change a strategy which has been very successful to this point over the last 7-8 years. The first 2-3 years were spent forcing our way into the Champions League group before UEFA tried shutting the door and throwing away the key with FFP, we had no choice but to spend big and fast to facilitate the long term plans.

 

[Akpowell]

We are not,napoli have form for this

Are Napoli doing it in the hope that another club will jump in and offer the asking price

 

[RayCTID]

Koulibaly has won the Coppa Italia and made the Serie A ToTY four times in a row, I'd argue that's a more impressive CV than most of our players had before joining.

Still not as sparkling as the players mentioned.

 

[blueparrot]

We are not,napoli have form for this

Well if Tolmie is right and we haven't bid, can hardly blame Napoli. Though think it's unlikely we still haven't made any offer.

 

[ctid1894]

This has been ‘imminent’ for weeks now. Hopefully we’ll sign Holgate soon so this saga can finally end.

I don't think that's as far fetched as you believe, he's been watched a lot by every club in the top 8 excluding Liverpool for obvious reasons and Wolves. Quite a few from Europe too.

 

[Del_Bosque]

Laporte had achieved absolutely fuck all before we signed him. Lots of us thought he was a risk and we'd never seen him play. He's turning out pretty well. De Bruyne had no real impressive trophies before joining either, or countless others. Players come here to win their trophies, so what matters before they sign is their own quality.

yea teams who win trophies regularly don’t sell their best players

We aren’t going to stroll up and sign Madrid, Bayerns Barca’s over Juves first choice defenders

 

[MarsLlama]

Koulibaly has won the Coppa Italia and made the Serie A ToTY four times in a row, I'd argue that's a more impressive CV than most of our players had before joining.

No but it says more about how good he is than almost any other member of our squad had before they joined.

 

[M12Blue]

To quote Theresa May "I'd rather have no deal than a bad deal", oh hang on you may have a point.

No to be honest it's right player and the right price or walk away for me, I'll always put long term plans in front of short term stop gaps and that's all Koulibaly is for me. Good, very good player and if he's available at a good price, then why not, but at the current quoted asking price, he's not worth the gamble.

Time will tell if we get him or a younger version. As long as successful I’m sure we’ll both be happy

 

[kaz7]

Are Napoli doing it in the hope that another club will jump in and offer the asking price

Probably,we got burned with jorginho,i expect we are being careful,they would love us to steam in with a 90 m bid then sell to someone who bid a pound more