Manchester United, City To Chase Liverpool’s $87M Target Ahead Of Summer Transfer Window: Report

Manchester City and United are reportedly chasing for the same center-back, Kalidou Koulibaly, who is also on Liverpool’s transfer target list ahead of the summer market.

According to The Independent, Mason Greenwood’s impressive performances this season have made him a promising option for the team’s striker or right-wing roles and hence, Solskjaer has the freedom to bolster other areas. The report has further stated that if the Red Devils go for a central defender, they would approach Napoli for Koulibaly.

Since the coronavirus pandemic has financially hit several soccer clubs, it is understood that Napoli have lowered Koulibaly’s transfer fee to $87 million from the $124 million it had demanded a few months ago for the Senegal captain.

The same report has disclosed that Pep Guardiola has made the lookout for a defender as a priority because that’s an overdue replacement for their former captain Vincent Kompany, who left the club last summer. Even though Jadon Sancho has been Man Utd’s top target this summer, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer wants to improve other areas of the team as well and he believes Koulibaly will be a perfect fit at Old Trafford.

Earlier it was reported that Liverpool were at pole position in the race to sign Koulibaly after the Premier League side was believed to have offered Dejan Lovren as a part of the deal.

Croatian defender Lovren, who has made just 10 Premier League appearances for Liverpool in the ongoing 2019-20 campaign, has a year remaining on his contract at Anfield. However, he has fallen in the pecking order with the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, and Joel Matip already delivering for Jurgen Klopp’s side consistently. Even though Klopp has enough options in the defense, he wants to further strengthen it and he expects Koulibaly to be a great addition at Anfield.

If Koulibaly joins Liverpool, he could strike an excellent partnership with one of the best defenders at present, Van Dijk, and that would help Liverpool dominate in the coming seasons as well.

Liverpool have been crowned the 2019-20 Premier League champions and ahead of the next campaign, other clubs such as Man Utd and City are preparing to build up a side that would be able to challenge Liverpool for the league title.