Chelsea have just announced on their official website that Kalidou Koulibaly has left the club to jon Saudi Arabian team Al Hilal.
The defender ends up spending less than a year at Chelsea having signed from Napoli last summer.
He made 32 appearances in the end, but the arrival of Benoit Badiashile in January added more competition for minutes, and Wesley Fofana’s return from injury plus the return of Levi Colwill from loan makes the Senegal international look like a bit of a spare part now – and one on a monster salary.
Koulibaly still looks a decent player who could yet adapt and improve to the English game, but this is a sensible move. We have so many brilliant young central defenders and if we’re looking to the future, we’d rather have them on board than Koulibaly in his 30s, especially as he really looked to struggle with the pace of the league.
When it became clear that a team were willing to pay a decent sum for him (€20m according to Ben Jacobs) and take his vast wages off our books, it became a no brainer to get a deal done.
