Arsenal are targeting the signing of Kalidou Koulibaly for £53m this summer, in an effort to shore up their defence.

2Kostas Manolas

Kostas Manolas (VANO SHLAMOV/AFP/Getty Images)
  • Age: 26
  • Current club: AS Roma
  • Contract until: 2022
  • Market value: £31.5m

Very late in the January window, reliable BBC journalist David Ornstein confirmed Arsenal were exploring the possibility of signing the Roma centre-back. He also revealed that Arsene Wenger was trying to sign the defender back in the summer of 2016, before settling for Shkodran Mustafi.

Clearly the club like the centre-back, so they could revive that interest again this summer. The Manolas links feel like they’ve been going on forever, but at 26 he still has a lot of football ahead of him.

The defender is great in the air, and he has a lot of top level experience as well. This season he helped AS Roma to the Champions League semi-finals.

Perhaps Arsenal could bring him in to join Konstantinos Mavropanos, a fellow Greek centre-back who joined in January. Roma are under no obligation to sell though, with Manolas’ contract lasting another four years.