With Aymeric Laporte spending a large portion of last season sidelined with injury, John Stones finding himself on the periphery due to poor form, Eric Garcia only being used sparingly and Fernandinho being preferred at centre-back to Nicolas Otamendi, Manchester City stepped up their pursuit for a defender this summer.
One player they showed the most interest in was Kalidou Koulibaly, but the Sky Blues failed to agree a deal with Napoli to bring him to the Etihad and ended up signing Ruben Dias from Benfica in September. So why did their long-running attempt to sign Koulibaly fail? Our chief football operations officer Omar Berrada explained all to The Athletic.
Where will Manchester City finish this season?
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
He said: “The truth is, we never were in negotiations. People were reporting that the deal was agreed, done, about to happen and he was going to be announced in a few days, when we were never in touch at all with Napoli. Some consideration was given to him, but those parameters never came into play, so he was never really considered in that sense.”
The Athletic say Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis wanted in excess of £80m for the 6ft 1in star, which we were unwilling to pay. Our relationship with the Serie A club had reportedly soured after Jorginho was sold to Chelsea too, as we believed he’d be coming to us in 2018 instead.
Ultimately, I don’t think it would have been good business making a 29-year-old centre-back our most expensive player. Dias is six years Koulibaly’s junior, so we’re getting better value for money.
In other news, Manchester City could return for Ajax’s Nicolas Tagliafico in January