Kalidou Koulibaly has just given his first interview as a Chelsea player, showing off his impressive English skills which will help him settle in quickly as a Blue.
One of the trickier questions thrown his way was about his age – he’s 31 already and has been given a 5 year contract.
He batted away those concerns, and used the example of the exceptional Thiago Silva – 37 and still going strong – to show why he thought he had plenty more to give.
“At 31 I’m at a good moment,” the former Napoli defender said.
“I hope I will be here for a long time. It’s true that I’m 31, but I know I can give some years here. I want to give everything for the club. They have a lot of confidence in me, so I want to show on the pitch that they made a good choice in me.”
A few years ago Chelsea weren’t even handing out multiple year deals to players over 30 that they already owned, let alone buying players of that age for tens of millions.
It just shows how trends in football swing back and forth – not long ago it was considered foolish to spend money on older players, now teams like Chelsea are lauded for picking up sweet bargains like Thiago Silva on a free.
Let’s hope Koulibaly reinforces the latter opinion and not the former.
