Considering that I grew up on Italian football, it’s not surprising that I identify a lot with this quote “Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships”.  When you consider the transfer fees for defenders in recent years (David Luiz, Mangala and more recently Bailly) it also looks like the market values has adjusted because of the law of supply of demand- there just aren’t enough great defenders out there to satisfy all top clubs.
 

Clubs with deep pockets continue shopping in Serie A to find defenders, the league can count on a great tradition when it comes to back line players, and most Italian clubs aren’t afraid to move a player if the price is right. While we recently saw Torino’s captain Glik leave for the very reasonable sum of around 12 million euro to join Monaco, the remaining top center backs in Italy will cost a very significant amount- and that is if they leave at all.  

At the beginning of the summer Roma’s Kostas Manolas and Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly were hot names for many clubs already, while his stellar performances at the Euro made Leonardo Bonucci into one of the most sought after players on the market regardless of role. But some recent developments for their current clubs make their potential sale a bit more complicated. 
 

Let’s start with Bonucci who at the beginning of the Euro stated he was unequivocally staying at Juventus because there was no reason to leave. Last summer Bonucci signed an extension that made him one of the highest paid players on the team at around 4 million euro net of taxes- but his performances  at the Euro, as well as his connections to Conte and Guardiola, ensured he could command a much higher salary on the market.  

Chelsea was never really in the race for Bonucci- probably because Conte knows first hand how attached the player is to Juventus. Manchester City on the other hand made him their top target once Laporte stayed put- not really surprising when you consider that when Bayern Munich faced Juventus in the last Champions League, Guardiola told the media Bonucci was one of his favorite players.
 

While Juventus kept stating that Bonucci was off the market, the center back’s agent Alessandro Lucci travelled to England to meet with Manchester City to see if they would make an offer you can’t refuse. But the recent transfer negotiations with Manchester United for Pogba had the domino effect of Juventus taking Bonucci completely off the market even after Benatia’s arrival (Juve starts 3 center backs at a time, Barzagli is 35, Chiellini and Benatia are injury prone so there will still be plenty of minutes for Rugani with Bonucci ready to become the signature defender on the team).

 

Kalidou Koulibaly is in a somewhat similar situation. For most of the summer it looked like the Senegalese center back was likely on his way out at Napoli- but not surprisingly that changed after Higuain took a medical with Juventus. The minute that news broke, Napoli met with Koulibaly to restart the negotiation for an extension since he’s arguably their second most important player.
 

 Koulibaly was rumored to join clubs like West Ham and Stoke City last summer, but after arguably becoming the most improved player in Serie A the following season, he started getting linked to clubs like Bayern Munich, Manchester United and Chelsea. Now Koulibaly has a lot of leverage in the negotiations with Napoli.  

Koulibaly’s agent stated that while his client’s intention is to leave Napoli, he would be open to an extension with the Italian club should they offer him competitive wages, and include a reasonable release clause in his new contract. On the other hand Napoli already hedged against a potential Koulibaly departure by signing former Empoli center back Tonelli- one of the most underrated defenders in Italy. 
 

Conte has identified Koulibaly as the ideal defender to bolster Chelsea’s back line, while Everton has also contacted his agent- it will be interesting to see if Napoli agrees to come close to what these two clubs offered him wages wise. Koulibaly is a very tall and strong defender, who has really improved his passing and positioning under coach Sarri- he has everything needed to succeed in the Premier League.
 
 

Unlike Bonucci and Koulibaly, the domino effect impacting Manolas’ future may have happened awhile ago. When Roma acquired the 25 year old defender from Olympiakos back in 2014, in a deal brokered by Mino Raiola no less, they paid half of his transfer fee up front with the remaining 6 million euro due in September of 2016- and this is where it gets tricky.
 

Because of a clause in his contract, should Roma sell Manolas this summer, they would have to give Olympiakos half of the transfer fee rather than just 6 million (let’s assume he’s sold for 40 million- Olympiakos would get 14 million more than they are owed if he stays at Roma this summer). While there are ways around this like moving Manolas on a loan with option to buy deal, there have been other factors that make this less likely.

Just as Manolas was being heavily linked to Manchester United (before they signed Bailly) and Chelsea, Roma’s other starting center back Rudiger suffered a serious knee injury while practicing with the German national.  Soon afterwards Roma received over 30 million when Juventus used Pjanic’s exit clause, those two factors made giving Manolas an extension a priority for Roma.


 

Since then, Roma has sent Castan on loan to Sampdoria and their pursuit of Nacho Fernandez has been rather difficult since Zidane doesn’t want to let him go- they would need to find a top shelf center back to move Manolas. On the other hand, Roma has not been afraid to sell a player if the price is right especially since their sporting director Sabatini has a knack for finding competent center backs.  

While there are factors that suggest it will be difficult to land one out of Manolas, Koulibaly and especially Bonucci, the law of supply and demand makes it so that a club could make an offer so tempting that they could be on the move.
 

See you next Tuesday for another round of transfer talk… 


David Amoyal is the manager of the English page on Gianluca Di Marzio's website where he also writes weekly articles. David covers transfer news for ESPN, and has appeared on numerous radio shows on Sirius XM in the US as well as TalkSport in the UK. David is the former editor in chief of Vavel USA and his articles have been featured in many sites around the world. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidAmoyal