Liverpool told Koulibaly asking price by Napoli as search for defender goes on

Kalidou Koulibaly will not be leaving Napoli for anything less than £100m this month.

Despite Jurgen Klopp suggesting that the club will not be bringing in a new central defender during the January transfer window, Jamie Carragher thinks it would be ‘inconceivable’ for them not to.

Liverpool remain without both Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez to long-term injuries, and they could be six points behind Manchester United at the top by the end of the week.

Koulibaly has long been linked with a move away from Naples thanks to his consistency in Serie A, but Aurelio De Laurentiis is not willing to accept anything less than a nine figure sum.

According to talkSPORT’s Jim White, De Laurentiis laughed off the prospect of Koulibaly leaving.

White said: “There isn’t a window in the last two, three or four that we don’t see big mentions of the Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly.

“This morning, I spoke to Aurelio De Laurentiis, the Napoli owner, and said what about your player, are there bids in for him? He laughed it off saying he’s not for sale.

“It seems on this occasion Koulibaly is going nowhere. He stays and that was as recent as this morning. Anyone going in with anything other than £100million for Koulibaly can forget it.”

Klopp said of the window last week: "I cannot say definitely we won't bring any in.

"But it's just not likely because of the situation in the world.

"We should not forget the situation is tough one for all people and for football clubs as well.

“There might be football clubs with no financial problems but this club always was and always will be – with these owners – very responsible with things we do.

"If the world was in a normal place and everything was fine, we had won the league and recently won the Champions League and the club was in the best possible situation and then you have three senior centre-halves plus Fabinho and kids but the three senior centre-halves get injured, is that a situation you'd usually do something?

"Yes, definitely. But we are not in that situation. I don't know if something will happen or not.

"We maybe could do something, but it would be a short term solution and we don't want that as it doesn't help really, so we have to deal with the situation as we have so far and we have to get through this.

"It's not the best moment for the planet, so why should it be for football clubs?"

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