Salernitana Set to Add Former Roma and Napoli Defender

Salernitana will sign another established defender after bringing in Jerome Boateng, as they have struck a deal with Kostas Manolas. He’s a free agent as well, so he can join after deadline day. They have been after him for a while, but he took his time in making a decision, Alfredo Pedullà relays.

Hellas Verona were in the race until Wednesday, but the Granata came out victorious. The Campania side signaled that they were interested in Shkodran Mustafi, perhaps as a smokescreen to put pressure on the Greek center-back.

Manolas will reunite with former Roma director Walter Sabatini at Salernitana. He spent five seasons in the Italian capital, amassing over 200 appearances. He was signed by Napoli for €36M in 2019, but things didn’t go as expected, and he left three years later after losing the starting job to Amir Rrahmani. The veteran transferred to Olympiacos in January 2022 but left after just nine months to join Sharjah FC in the UAE.

La Bersagliera revamped their defense in January, partying ways with Flavius Daniliuc and Matteo Lovato and bringing in Marco Pellegrino, Jerome Boateng, Niccolò Pierozzi, and Triantafyllos Pasalidis, who suffered a shoulder injury in his debut. They also lost Norbert Gyomber for a while due to sports hernia surgery.

According to Nicolò Schira, Manolas will earn €500k for the next five months and, if Salernitana stay in Serie A, a two-year option will be activated, and he’ll make €1M per season.