Reports of Cyriel Dessers’ next move have been circulating the internet with the Super Eagles striker now apparently close to joining Cremonese.
The Super Eagles striker spent the 2021/22 season on loan at Feyenoord where he scored 20 goals in 41 appearances across all competitions.
Dessers also drew the attention of mainstream Europe with 10 goals in the inaugural season of the UEFA Europa Conference League, finishing as the competition’s top scorer and carrying Feyenoord to an unprecedented final.
Transfer speculation
When a player has the kind of season Dessers had at Feyenoord, it is only natural that transfer speculation surrounds him and he gets endlessly linked with a bigger move.
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The 27-year-old returned to his parent club KRC Genk after Feyenoord was priced out of a permanent transfer and even announced his return to Belgium with a goal on the opening day of the season in a 3-2 loss to Club Brugge.
For most players, that goal would signal a boost in their reputation and make the big clubs chase even harder but that is not the case for Dessers.
Barely two days after scoring for Genk against Club Brugge, the Super Eagles striker is reportedly heading to Italy to sign for Cremonese.
Cremonese is hardly a step up
If the reports are true, the only notable positive of Dessers moving to Cremonese is the visibility that comes with playing in a top five European league.
Cremonese have only just been promoted to the Serie A and are odds-on favourites to make an instant return to Serie B which may hurt Dessers’ stock.
By making this risky move, it appears Dessers is willing to back himself to play well enough to attract bigger interest even if Cremonese does get relegated.
Playing on a bad team can hurt a player’s reputation and stock irreparably as seen in the case of Simy Nwankwo who also signed for a newly-promoted Serie A team which proved to be a downturn for his career.
Is this a Nigerian issue?
Dessers’ failure to attract Europe’s top clubs despite performing well is the latest development in a worrying trend among Nigerian players.
Players like Paul Onuachu, Wilfried Ndidi and Emmanuel Dennis have struggled to earn much-deserved big moves despite excelling.
For context, Desserts is one of four players to have hit double figures in goals for Feyenoord last season, the other three have already moved on.
Colombian winger, Luis Sinisterra scored 23 goals and has been snapped up by Premier League club, Leeds United for €25 million.
Attacking midfielder Guus Til scored 21 goals on loan from Spartak Moscow and has now joined PSV Eindhoven while Dessers who scored 20 goals is heading to Cremonese.
The other stars of Feyenoord last season were Bryan Linsen who scored 17 goals and has now left to join Urawa Reds in a lucrative move to Japan and 20-year-old wonderkid Orkan Kokcu, the Turkish midfielder who is primed for a big transfer having been strongly linked to West Ham and Leicester City.
Somehow, Cyriel Dessers has struggled to draw the same level of attention as his peers which really makes one think about how Nigerian players tend to generally underperform in transfer windows.