Simon Mignolet is the “Best Option” for Napoli

The Liverpool goalkeeper’s agent says that talks with Napoli are ongoing and a deal is likely.

Following the arrival of Alisson Becker from Roma over the summer in a £66M deal, Liverpool have at least one too many senior goalkeepers in the squad and so a new home must be found for eiter Loris Karius or Simon Mignolet before the end of the month.

Karius has been tentatively linked with a few European clubs, but the general consensus is that it is Mignolet—five years older than Karius and behind him on the depth chart at the end of last season—who is most likely to depart in the coming weeks.

As to where it is he’ll end up, the most likely landing spot for the 30-year-old Belgian stopper appears to be Napoli, with agent Nico Vaessen telling journalists in Belgium today that while a deal isn’t done just yet, negotiations are currently ongoing.

“We are talking with them but there is not an agreement yet,” Mignolet’s agent told Belgium’s La Dernière Heure. “It’s in the interest of the club to find a solution. Liverpool would keep him but he wants to—he must—play. He deserves to start for a big team.”

After signing for Liverpool in the summer of 2013 for £9M it’s been something of a struggle for the former Sunderland and Sint-Truiden man, who despite playing 200 games for the club over five seasons failed to consistently impress when given the chance.

However, his age, wages of around £60k per week, and that failure to ever really nail down the starting job for Liverpool across five seasons and two managers could make things difficult for a club to justify a major outlay to sign him—something his agent admits to.

“For [Napoli], Simon remains the best option in terms of quality but there is the financial aspet,” Vaessen added. Hopefully it won’t take too long—for the sake of all parties—for that side of things to get sorted and a deal to get done.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com