Former Manchester united player Rio Ferdinand believes Kalidou Koulibaly’s age could be a ‘problem from a business perspective’ if Chelsea consider a move for the Napoli defender this summer.
There has been alot of transfer speculation in the media claiming that Frank Lampard is desperate to spend his money and try to improve that back-line with Koulibaly on his list of possible signings.
Regarded as one of the finest defenders in the game right now, all the top clubs are reportedly interested in the powerhouse, especially as he has indicated that he would be open to the idea of leaving Seria A.
But the former England midfielder has claimed that Koulibaly’s age could be a problem in any potential deal to bring him to the Premier League, he told BT SPort: ‘I think you need a leader and Koulibaly’s that type. ‘He’s 28/29 and I think you need somebody in there to come in and command it.
‘You’d love all the young players there don’t you, I think he’s got so many young players, but, I think the spine of the team he’s got to address, ‘keeper is probably the first one isn’t it.’
There had been reports that Napoli would consider lowering their asking price for Koulibaly amid the financial uncertainty caused by the coronavirus, But Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis that the centre-back will not leave for anything less than £81million.
‘Kalidou is a wonderful person and of course it’d be sad to lose him,’ he told Sky Italia last month.
‘Everything has a time and a place, even when it comes to going our separate ways. ‘Having said that, we don’t have €90m (£81m) on the table and in any case, it takes two to separate.’ Everyone in football knows that defenders get better with age and if it is Koulibaly’s age that will be the problem, then they would be missing out on a real class defender.