Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea would all have to fork out as much as £105million to seal the transfer of Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly this summer, according to reports.
The Senegal international has shone as one of the top centre-backs in Europe in recent times after another hugely impressive campaign in Serie A.
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Koulibaly would significantly strengthen any of the three Premier League giants named above, with the National recently linking Arsenal with a move for him and reporting he’d likely cost around £53m.
Corriere dello Sport (translated by Sport Witness) have also claimed interest from Liverpool and Chelsea, but it may be that he’d cost significantly more than that.
It’s understandable that Napoli would do all in their power to keep such an influential player after running Juventus close in this season’s title race in Italy, and RAI Sport (translated by the Metro) claim he has an asking price of £105m.
This would take two records off Virgil van Dijk at Liverpool, with BBC Sport claiming his £75m transfer in January made him the club’s record signing and most expensive defender in history.
It would also be a club-record transfer for Arsenal, with BBC Sport claiming their £56m move for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is their current record, and it would be the same for Chelsea, with Alvaro Morata their record purchase at £60m, according to BBC Sport.
That’s a lot of potential history to be made – but would any of these clubs realistically spend quite that much on a defender? Liverpool came pretty close in January, but one wowuld have to question if they could afford it again so soon after.