Southampton and Norwich City were previously linked with Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly.
According to the latest reports in The Sun, Napoli have slapped an £80 million price tag on star defender Kalidou Koulibaly in a bid to warn off interest from Premier League title challengers Chelsea.
The 27-year-old is widely regarded as one of the best defenders in Italy, although that wasn’t always the case and only a few summers ago he could have ended up at either Norwich City or Southampton.
Koulibaly’s agent Bruno Satin was quoted by Talksport as saying both Norwich and the Saints were keen to sign his client, with Napoli putting the player up for sale.
“Early in the summer the player was put up for sale, but with a very high asking price,” Bruno Satin explained in an interview back in 2015.
“We spoke to Southampton, Norwich and Bayer Leverkusen, they were looking for a defender on loan. Napoli asked for twice as much as they’d spent.”
It was suggested that Napoli’s asking price at the time was around £13 million, but the 27-year-old ultimately remained in Naples following the arrival of now Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri.
At the time Southampton were looking to establish themselves in the top half of the Premier League, and they finished that summer by landing Virgil van Dijk from Celtic on deadline day.
Whether Van Dijk would have arrived had Koulibaly joined earlier in the summer remains to be seen, but either way it was a big miss for Southampton – even if they did go on to sell Van Dijk for a record transfer fee.
For Norwich it was an even bigger miss, as the Canaries suffered relegation at the end of the 2015-16 campaign and they subsequently now find themselves in the Championship looking for a top-flight return.
Over the past three seasons, Koulibaly has proved to be a world class defender, and it comes as little surprise to see Sarri look to join up with him again following his recent appointment as the new Chelsea manager.
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