Transfer update provided on Burnley’s pursuit of 21-cap international | OneFootball

Burnley are yet to strike an agreement with Metz for centre-back Boubakar Kouyate in their quest to address this position, according to an update on Twitter from journalist Alan Nixon.

The same reporter revealed last week that the French second-tier side were holding out for around £10m for his services, with the Clarets submitting a bid believed to be around half of that with a hefty sell-on clause.

Though they only launched this offer recently, he is a player that has been pursued by manager Vincent Kompany for a number of weeks now and could potentially be a more experienced option in central defence.

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There has been a considerable amount of turnover in this position in recent months at Turf Moor, with three former key players in Nathan Collins, Ben Mee and James Tarkowski all moving on this summer.

In return, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, CJ Egan-Riley and Luke McNally have all arrived – but there could be another departure to come at the heart of the defence with Kevin Long to be allowed to leave.

With this and the Clarets seemingly missing out on Liverpool defender Sepp van den Berg to local rivals Blackburn Rovers, they now seem to be in the mix for Mali international Kouyate once more, though a deal is yet to be struck with Metz for his services.

The Verdict:

As a player with 21 international caps under his belt, he could be a more experienced head to have in the backline but still has plenty of room to grow at 25 years old.

If this deal does materialise though, it will be interesting to see what happens with Charlie Taylor’s future because he won’t want to be on the bench, yet it would be hard to see one of Ian Maatsen or Harwood-Bellis drop out of the first 11.

This could mean the Leeds United target leaves before the summer window closes, though he has made a respectable start to the season and is arguably someone worth keeping at Turf Moor.

If they did want to pursue a deal for Kouyate though, they should be looking to get the best deal possible despite having plenty of funds to play with following some key departures in recent months.

It would be difficult to see the Clarets not getting the deal they want if they continue to pursue this deal and the player did want to make the move, because there are more than two weeks left to go in the transfer window and plenty of negotiating that can be done.