Napoli are reportedly targeting a Liverpool player as a replacement for one of their Serie A-winning stars of last season.
With a deal agreed for Kim Min-jae to join Bayern Munich (Fabrizio Romano), the Azzurri seemingly intend to replace him with Ibrahima Konate, according to Corriere dello Sport (via Sport Witness).
Their report claims that the Frenchman is on a list of targets to fill the void left by the 26-year-old South Korea defender, with the Italian champions ‘willing to invest’ in the Reds centre-back.
However, even Napoli realise that while they hope to tempt the 24-year-old away from Anfield, it’d take a ‘remarkable’ fee to lure him to the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
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Even though a variety of injury problems restricted Konate to just 18 Premier League appearances last season (Transfermarkt), Liverpool should give short shrift to any notion of parting with the former RB Leipzig colossus.
Joe Gomez has had his share of fitness concerns as well, while Joel Matip is into the final year of his contract, so the Reds should be focusing on bolstering their centre-back options rather than trimming them.
Thankfully, Jurgen Klopp is most unlikely to jettison a player he dubbed ‘outstanding’ following a colossal performance in the 2-1 win over Tottenham last November (LFC official website), with the 6 foot 5 defender standing out as one of the best players in his position for winning the ball back.
As per FBref, he averaged 2.19 tackles per game over the past 12 months, ranking him among the top 13% of centre-backs in Europe’s five main leagues for that metric.
If Napoli are desperate to find a replacement for Munich-bound Kim, they can keep looking, because frankly Liverpool will probably tell the Serie A champions just that if they come calling for Konate.
No. He is part of the LiverpooFC future.