Before Manchester City signed Ruben Dias from Benfica, they were interested in Jules Kounde and made contact with Sevilla over a potential deal. The Sky Blues’ pursuit of the centre-back failed, however, and Kounde’s agent Jonathan Kebe revealed why.
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The 21-year-old’s representative told ABC (h/t Sport Witness). “It is a compliment that a club as important as Manchester City is interested in you. Pressure Sevilla to go to Manchester City? No, no. We don’t even talk about it. There was an offer, the club studied it, said ‘no’, and that’s it.”
Kounde joined Los Palanganas from Girondins Bordeaux last summer and has gone on to make 43 appearances in all competitions, scoring two goals with one assist.
Last season, the 6ft defender played in 29 Liga outings, won 94/149 aerial duels (63%), blocked 12 shots, made 88 clearances, only gave away a foul every 110 minutes, averaged a tackle (23) or interception (23) every 50 minutes and was only dribbled past once every 288 minutes. It’s easy to see why we were interested.
Kebe added: “We will never leave if Sevilla doesn’t want us to. Sometimes a player’s future depends on three parties, the footballer himself, the club who wants to buy, and, of course, the club he’s owned by. We appreciate the affection of City, Fernando Navarro and of Monchi, who was the first to trust in Kounde.”
Sevilla’s sporting director Monchi told the Telegraph that an English club believed to be Manchester City, had a bid rejected that was “more than double” what Sevilla paid for Kounde (€25m/£22.7m) in 2019 (€50m/£45.3m). They turned down the offer, however, as it was deemed “insufficient”.
As per The Times, Kounde has an £82.5m release clause, so he wouldn’t be cheap to sign. It appears we were unwilling to pay over the odds for the 21-year-old and didn’t make an improved bid before the transfer window shut. Instead we signed Dias.
In other news, here’s why Manchester City failed to sign Kalidou Koulibaly from Napoli in September