Kalidou Koulibaly

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Rasendori said:
The 24-year-old has a contract until 2019, but he is clearly not satisfied about the current terms and is thinking of moving on.

“I had two positive seasons and now there are some offers on the table,” Koulibaly told L'Equipe. “I'll choose for the best, not only from a financial point of view, but also in terms of the sport.

“Many high-profile clubs want me and I haven't had any sign from Napoli. Talk for a renewal is at a dead end and the club never wanted to talk to us about it.

“I'm under the impression that I'll leave. Napoli aren't giving any signs of life, they vanished. I want to take one step up in my career and I'll probably do that by playing abroad.”

Azzurri Coach Antonio Conte will be taking the reins of Chelsea next season, and he could make for a useful contact.

“I haven't spoken with him, but I could do that soon. If nothing happens with Napoli I'll start getting in touch with other clubs. Yes, I could adapt myself to the Premier League.”

http://www.football-italia.net/85601/koulibaly-napoli-im-out

I hope we're in for him. Inb4 "what about Bailly?" I hope Bailly is predominantly used as a right back.
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To be honest, I have seen Bailly as CB next to Mussachio. How good is Bailly as RB? Is he better than Valencia? I hope he is good at crosses.

I can see Koulibaly coming to the premier league. He is a strong ball playing CB, I have been impressed with his technique and some long passes. He is around 1.95 m (6 ft 5 in), so that's also a plus. Unfortunately, he has been linked with Chelsea.
 
Fer said:
He is around 1.95 m (6 ft 5 in)
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I'm not so sure he is. Google has him down at that height. But imo he's nowhere near that. He's closer to 1.87m (which is Bailly's height). Just take a look at any Napoli team photo and you'll see he's quite a bit shorter than Raul Albiol who's 1.90m
 
Fer said:
To be honest, I have seen Bailly as CB next to Mussachio. How good is Bailly as RB? Is he better than Valencia? I hope he is good at crosses.

I can see Koulibaly coming to the premier league. He is a strong ball playing CB, I have been impressed with his technique and some long passes. He is around 1.95 m (6 ft 5 in), so that's also a plus. Unfortunately, he has been linked with Chelsea.
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And what did you think of him as a CB?

I've only seen Bailly play twice, once against Real Madrid, and once against Barcelona. This is because I like to see Barcelona and Real Madrid play games where my preconceived conclusions give me the impression that the opposition won't yield to overwhelming superiority, but rather show conviction until the very end. From that small sample, Bailly played one of those (Real Madrid) games as a right back, and the other being against Barcelona as a CB. The latter was during the period where Barcelona weren't particularly impressive, even the game prior to that against Arsenal, I was deeply underwhelmed with their performance, despite them winning 3-1. As for the former, he had a great game against Real Madrid, playing as a right back. The reason I personally hope to see him play as a right back is ultimately derived from an abundance of reasons. For starters, his age. He turned 22 this year, whereas Koulibaly turns 25 this year, which would not only make the latter a similar age as Smalling, but most importantly from my perspective, he would be significantly older than TFM, Tuanzebe and Williams. Secondly, his weight. Eric Bailly at 77kg, is one thing I'm particularly disconcerted with considering it's been prevalent for us to get bullied by the sides at the lower sides of the table. Conversely, Koulibaly = 89KG. Thirdly, an interesting statistic I came across was that he was only dribbled past 6 times, compared to Smalling's 13 and Blind's 29. I can envisage him being like the way players bounce of Valencia, with perhaps the most notable example when we played Manchester City, and even from a Man Utd fan, it was embarrassing to see Sterling attempt to go past Valencia again and again and each time he would be comprehensively bullied. Additionally, I'm a big advocate of having an attacking full back on one side, and a defensively sound one on the opposite side, and given that Shaw is unequivocally our best full back, I'd like to see a defensively sound one on the left predominantly included in the starting berth, be that Darmian, Tyler Reid or Bailly. I'm quite fond of Valencia, but would rather see him playing as a right back, when we have a someone on the left that doesn't have the same exuberance as Shaw. That isn't to say he isn't or won't be a goof CB, I just personally hope he will be used as a right back.

Yes, Koulibaly is a commanding physical defender first and foremost, great ball retention, both footed, has just come off a season where he predominantly played on the left side of a central defence pairing, and he's quick also. He embodies the prototype of the perfect CB, if such a thing existed. The likes of Kompany at his peak, and the current Jerome Boateng would fit into this category, as they're physically imposing, quick, great readers of the game, yet, concurrently, being technically gifted on the ball. A partnership of Koulibaly as the LCB, and Boateng as the RCB would essentially be insurmountable imo.
 
Whats the latest on him? Can Everton afford to pay 40m for him? As of now Chelsea are in the drivers seat?
 
RDCR07 said:
Whats the latest on him? Can Everton afford to pay 40m for him? As of now Chelsea are in the drivers seat?
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This is the latest as far as i know:



Too late to hijack maybe, or it could end up with Napoli simply refusing to sell.
 
Napoli don't really need to sell with the Higuain transfer. I am guessing they holding out for another crazy fee.
 
Fer said:
To be honest, I have seen Bailly as CB next to Mussachio. How good is Bailly as RB? Is he better than Valencia? I hope he is good at crosses.

I can see Koulibaly coming to the premier league. He is a strong ball playing CB, I have been impressed with his technique and some long passes. He is around 1.95 m (6 ft 5 in), so that's also a plus. Unfortunately, he has been linked with Chelsea.
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Not a perfect scenario with both Bailly and Koulibaly both involved heavily in the same team. Imagine both of them gone during AFON. There will be disaster.
 
Bailly is our main centreback, for feck sake stop putting him on RB in your mind. He will end up better than Koulibaly anyway.
 
The red panther said:
Bailly is our main centreback, for feck sake stop putting him on RB in your mind. He will end up better than Koulibaly anyway.
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I wouldn't call him the main CB yet when Mourinho himself isn't sure how he'll take to the PL
 
The red panther said:
Bailly is our main centreback, for feck sake stop putting him on RB in your mind. He will end up better than Koulibaly anyway.
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Agreed, Bailly is not a right back. I hope we play him alongside Smalling at centre half, and potentially buy a new right back.
 
Loublaze said:
I wouldn't call him the main CB yet when Mourinho himself isn't sure how he'll take to the PL
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Bailly is one of Mourinho's 4 primary signings, i.e. starters. He'll start.

He believes Bailly is technically and physically very good and goes on to say its his job to help him adapt playing for a big club, which only comes from playing regularly.

Like any other signing there is risk to this as well. He may fail to adapt but he'll be first choice from the start.
 
I don’t know if I’m in the minority here, but I see him as very high risk signing. He’s 31 and spent the last 8 years playing in a very slow paced Serie A. I’m not sure he’s going to adapt to the premier league as seamlessly as some believe. I’ve always liked his style of defending but been cautious about how well I think he’d do in the prem.

He reminds me very much of Bailly in that he likes to get very close and combatitive. This can of course lead to being caught out of position and errors often. I guess playing in a back 3 will help. I’m interested to see how he does in a completely new defence for Chelsea.
 
Chief123 said:
I don’t know if I’m in the minority here, but I see him as very high risk signing. He’s 31 and spent the last 8 years playing in a very slow paced Serie A. I’m not sure he’s going to adapt to the premier league as seamlessly as some believe. I’ve always liked his style of defending but been cautious about how well I think he’d do in the prem.

He reminds me very much of Bailly in that he likes to get very close and combatitive. This can of course lead to being caught out of position and errors often. I guess playing in a back 3 will help. I’m interested to see how he does in a completely new defence for Chelsea.
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I personally think he'll adapt fine. Might not be as good as he was in Italy but still very good. However, a 5 year contract worth 300k a week for a 31 year old is high risk no matter what way you look at it.
 
Can't help but think Chelsea are another club that get things done quicker than us (who doesn't) once they've fully identified their target. Whether a four-year (not five as some saying) for a 31-year-old is a good move is another matter. After years of us supposedly being linked to him, it will be interesting to see if he adapts to the PL
 
YouOnlyLiveTwice said:
This is the latest as far as i know:



Too late to hijack maybe, or it could end up with Napoli simply refusing to sell.
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mitchmouse said:
Can't help but think Chelsea are another club that get things done quicker than us (who doesn't) once they've fully identified their target. Whether a four-year (not five as some saying) for a 31-year-old is a good move is another matter. After years of us supposedly being linked to him, it will be interesting to see if he adapts to the PL
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Only took them six years.
 
Based Adnan said:
I personally think he'll adapt fine. Might not be as good as he was in Italy but still very good. However, a 5 year contract worth 300k a week for a 31 year old is high risk no matter what way you look at it.
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Panic buy. Huge fee, huge wages. Surprised they didn't have anyone younger in their scouting list.
 
bringbackbebe said:
Panic buy. Huge fee, huge wages. Surprised they didn't have anyone younger in their scouting list.
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Panic buy with ages still to go in the window? And the transfer fee is tiny in the year 2022. You pay £33m for above average squad players in this day and age and we’ve just signed one of the worlds best defenders for that.

As for his age, Tuchel and the club clearly wanted one of our CB targets to be a highly experienced leader with a big personality to replace Rüdiger. Koulibaly is exactly that. The other CB’s we will now target are much younger.
 
Orc said:
Panic buy with ages still to go in the window? And the transfer fee is tiny in the year 2022. You pay £33m for above average squad players in this day and age and we’ve just signed one of the worlds best defenders for that.

As for his age, Tuchel and the club clearly wanted one of our CB targets to be a highly experienced leader with a big personality to replace Rüdiger. Koulibaly is exactly that. The other CB’s we will now target are much younger.
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You already have 37 year old Silva though? Or isn’t he experienced enough?

I don’t think he was first choice for you at all. Don’t think it’s a panic buy as such but certainly an easy deal to do quickly as no one else seemed interested probably due to age and fees.
 
TheReligion said:
You already have 37 year old Silva though? Or isn’t he experienced enough?

I don’t think he was first choice for you at all. Don’t think it’s a panic buy as such but certainly an easy deal to do quickly as no one else seemed interested probably due to age and fees.
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I think he definitely wasn't first choice of the previous regime - by all accounts, Kounde was the main CB target for Granovskaia. Once they were shifted out though and Tuchel was empowered under the new ownership, it seems pretty clear Koulibaly was at the very top of the list (and rightly so; he's comfortably the best CB we've been linked to even tenuously).
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
I think he definitely wasn't first choice of the previous regime - by all accounts, Kounde was the main CB target for Granovskaia. Once they were shifted out though and Tuchel was empowered under the new ownership, it seems pretty clear Koulibaly was at the very top of the list (and rightly so; he's comfortably the best CB we've been linked to even tenuously).
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Possibly although I’m not so sure. It looks like Kounde is going to Barca so perhaps that’s been rumbling.

Again Chelsea were in for De Ligt this summer before this guy came up, and Ake, so you wonder why they didn’t wrap this up very early if he was the number one priority.
 
Be interesting to see how he fares against Haaland & Nunez when they play City & scousers
 
mitchmouse said:
maybe there was s much truth in that as the stories that we were signing him
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That would be a case of you believing what you want to believe because it backs up your argument rather than actually looking at it objectively. If we look at who they’ve just signed, they were linked to Sterling since May.
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
I repeat. Want. Not need. They WANTED to sign him. It had zero to do with need. The fact they won a UCL without him with in 6 months of appointing Tuchel is all the proof required.
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I repeat. It’s irrelevant. Go and look at the context of the conversation. It was about how Chelsea do their business rapidly. It had feck all to do with whether they needed a player or simply wanted them.
 
TheReligion said:
Possibly although I’m not so sure. It looks like Kounde is going to Barca so perhaps that’s been rumbling.

Again Chelsea were in for De Ligt this summer before this guy came up, and Ake, so you wonder why they didn’t wrap this up very early if he was the number one priority.
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Still think we're getting one more CB - and Tuchel spoke about how he wanted to add at least one with experience.

Don't think the Ake talks went very far given City's price demands - by all accounts a compromise was nowhere near being struck.

I also wouldn't necessarily say we were going down a list or anything in terms of who we prioritised - we kicked the tyres on several CBs as we need to buy at least two.
 
acnumber9 said:
That would be a case of you believing what you want to believe because it backs up your argument rather than actually looking at it objectively. If we look at who they’ve just signed, they were linked to Sterling since May.
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the window wasn't open in May - and didn't see any such link anyway
 
Was Danny Drinkwater just used as a reference?

Probably one of the worst transfers of all time should not be spoke about.
 
IrishRedDevil said:
Was Danny Drinkwater just used as a reference?

Probably one of the worst transfers of all time should not be spoke about.
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It was bizarre from day one (not that we haven't done some very strange things in our time)
 
mitchmouse said:
the window wasn't open in May - and didn't see any such link anyway
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And? The window wasn’t open when we were first linked to De Jong either. You didn’t see it because you don’t obsess over Chelsea signings the way you would United ones. Which creates the illusion they’re much quicker to seal transfers.
 
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