Chelsea confirm Kalidou Koulibaly transfer to Al-Hilal

In recent weeks, a number of Blues players have been heavily linked with a transfer to the Saudi Pro League, those developments coinciding with Chelsea desperately needing to balance their books.

N'Golo Kante has already completed a free transfer to Al-Ittihad, while Edouard Mendy and Hakim Ziyech are in line to finalise moves to Al-Ahli and Al-Nassr respectively.

However, Chelsea have announced on Sunday evening that Koulibaly has become the next player to officially seal a switch to the Middle East, bringing to an end a one-year spell at Stamford Bridge.

Although a fee has not been revealed, transfer expert Fabrizio Romano claimed that Chelsea are in line to recoup in the region of €23m (£19.78m) for the Senegal international.

While that represents a considerable loss on the £33m spent less than 12 months ago, Chelsea's hierarchy are under pressure to generate income before June 30 in order to balance the books.

Providing that Mateo Kovacic and Kai Havertz join the aforementioned players moving to Saudi Arabia in leaving for Manchester City and Arsenal respectively, the West Londoners will be in a better position to fulfil those obligations.

Newly-appointed head coach Mauricio Pochettino has been open to selling Koulibaly due to his desire to include Levi Colwill in his first-team squad for 2023-24.

The academy graduate, who impressed on loan at Brighton & Hove Albion last season, is regarded as a natural replacement for Koulibaly and is expected to challenge Benoit Badiashile for the left-sided centre-back role when the Frenchman comes back into contention after injury.

From Koulibaly's perspective, he leaves Chelsea having made a total of 29 starts and three substitute appearances in all competitions.

Just 20 of those starts came in the Premier League during a campaign where Chelsea could only finish in 12th position in the Premier League table.

As a result, it was deemed that there was no place in Pochettino's plans for Koulibaly going forward, the Argentine needing and wanting to work with a smaller squad.

Chelsea have now parted ways with four of last season's squad with Denis Zakaria and Joao Felix returning to their parent clubs Juventus and Atletico Madrid, followed by Kante's switch to Al-Ittihad.