Carlo Ancelotti has apparently ruled out an Everton move this summer for the Napoli centre-back Khalidou Koulibaly in the latest twist to this story.
The Everton boss was speaking before tomorrow night’s match at Brighton and Hove Albion and Ancelotti played down the possibility of the Toffees signing the Senegal defender claiming that he is happy with his current resources in that position.
The rumours about Koulibaly have been breaking the surface regularly over the past few weeks with claims that the Italian wants to be reunited with the player he managed eighteen months ago in Serie A.
Napoli are also it seems ready to cash in on the 29-year-old and are ready to listen to offers for him and the Toffees were most strongly linked to him.
Ancelotti has six centre-backs to choose from including the two young defenders on loan. So on paper at least he has more than enough central defenders to pick from.
One of those defenders is Ben Godfrey who has made a huge impact since he signed and has put in some outstanding performances, particularly when he was playing left-back in Lucas Digne’s absence earlier this season.
Now there are stats out revealing just how good Godfrey is, especially in one-on-one situations when he taking on speedy attackers. The ex-Norwich City player seems a defender for the Blues to build around for the next decade perhaps.
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Coming back to Koulibaly, you sometimes don’t know what to make of these stories whether they are ever to be taken seriously but this one has persisted.
There are similarities with the whole saga over James Rodriguez when there were relentless rumours of interest that Ancelotti was downplaying in his usually coy manner, before of course eventually signing him last summer.
Alongside this there are more stories today about the future of one of the centre-backs Everton currently have; Colombian defender Yerry Mina.
The Mail on Sunday say that Everton will let Mina go and want £22 million to sell him. We’ve covered this issue before and it deos seem logical that of Koulibaly is on Ancelotti’s transfer list, that Mina would be the one to make way.
I’m not sure whether there is any real substance to these various inter-linked stories as usual we will only have a few months to find out.