Nigeria winger Chidera Ejuke is on the verge of linking up with CSKA Moscow after he was granted permission to negotiate with the Russian club by Heerenveen, Completesports.com reports.
Dutch outfit Heerenveen, according to reports have accepted a €12m bid from CSKA Moscow for the pacy winger.
“Heerenveen has given Chidera Ejuke permission to negotiate with a new club. The attacker therefore does not travel with the selection to the training camp in De Lutte,”reads a statement on the club’s official website.
Ejuke joined Heerenveen from Norwegian club Valerenga for €2m last summer.
The 22-year-old scored 10 goals and provided four assists in 29 appearances across all competitions for the Frisians.
He topped the league in successful dribbles per game with 4.1 (a 56 percent success rate.
His performances earned him rave reviews in the Dutch press, and put him in the frame for a call-up to the Nigeria national team.
By Adeboye Amosu
6 Comments
This is a skillful, crafty, master dribbler, out and out winger who scored 10 goals and provided 4 assists in 29 matches last season almost sealing a deal in less than 2 weeks. No PR jobs, no hypes, no media stunts, no over-bloated valuations. But Ac Milan, Inter Milan, Atalanta, Man U, Wolves, Arsenal, Leeds, Sheffield….who remain… are purportedly “fighting” themselves for some people since January, yet none has submitted any bids. By next week now maybe its Barca, Juve and Madrid that will enter the ring in this wrestlemania summer slam “fight”. E dey come…e dey come, na here e go come meets us. Na sidon look we dey.
Hmmm congratulations to this guy in advance but I expected a bigger club considering his statics.His great success in dribbling abilities, goals and assist before the lingering pandemic…. This guy can dribble very well, he is very pacy, good agility with good scoring abilities. I don’t know if I overrate him so far but I thought this guy would have gone toa bigger club either in france, Germany, italy or Spain. I am a bit surprise why clubs from these aforementioned tops leagues didn’t meet his valuation.
Well, all the best to him ahead of his next destination…
A large section of analysts in Netherlands criticize Ejuke for often holding on to the ball for a tad too long, dribbling unnecessarily and being poor with his decision making. Showboating is a culture that is gradually being killed off by the modern day European pragmatism. These are probably some fundamentals some of these big clubs consider. They will rather prefer a less flashy player with more end product is terms of assist, assist of assists, key passes or even goals rather than the number of dribbles completed….that is why its often seems like they “overrate their own” (although they sometimes go). But when you look deeply and see the stats and figures, you would then probably understand the dynamics of the market.
Otherwise having emerged the best dribbler in the Netherlands last season, one would have assumed the likes of Ajax, Feyenoord or PSV should swoop on Ejuke like hot puff-puff in harmattan season, if at all other bigger guys from the other leagues dont come around. Nowadays in Europe, if you are going to be a show-boater, make sure your showboating is leading to a fruitful end-product at least to a ratio of 0.8 of the times. Otherwise you might stagnate at the level where you are for the rest of your career……recall that same has been complained of about Sam Kalu, whereas Moses Simon is emerging as player of the season and team of the decade player for Nantes. In modern day football, especially in the top European leagues, End product is always always key. At the end of the season, you will be evaluated more by raw numbers of how much to contribute to the team going forward, much more than how many people you dribbled during the course of the season.
Bye and large, I wont consider CSKA Moscow a step down for Ejuke….at least he has a shot at winning trophies in Russia as well as featuring regularly in UEFA competitions. My only fear for him is how it will impact his SE chances, with his competitors for his position playing in the top 5 leagues where they are going to been seen regularly by a larger section of the Nigerian public.
Wow! Your analysis are top-notch senior man! I hail you! Well, I am also being concerned about his super eagles chances considering this his purported move. I cuncure with the fact that CSKA is never a step-down for him however he should be talked to rather focus more on scoring and creating assists-in assists-out rather than showboating because modern day football has far gone beyond that level as you have rightly asserted above…
Well, I don’t see him playing too long at CSKA Moscow before bigger clubs come calling.
Some forumites may term me as one of your new boys on this forum because i have seen more reasons to be in line with you in this debate…I won’t mind to be termed as such as I will be happy to be linked with a better football analyst.
#smile#
@Dr.Drey,am tempted to agree with you in Toto except to say the following: I saw Ejuke play a couple of occasions last season he is a fantastic baller.Yes it is true that he also holds the ball for too long a time,but the after result is also not bad. But again if you consider Ejuke as holding the ball for too long,how do you explain his team mate’s profligacy in front of goal.If Ejuke’s team mates converts all the chances created by him the young ma will be top in assist in the entire Europe.Wha….t it is annoying how that a whooping 5 chances and even more will be created in point blank case and his team mate will blow it off. Am sure if he finds himself in a bigger team his stats will improve for all to see.
Further to response to your comment,I will rather wish you keep your fingers crossed and watch as event unfold over Emmanuel,so that you are not seen as being unnecessarily antagonistic. If PR show is what Emmanuel is adopting it will not be out of place and he will not be the first to adopt same and definitely not going to be the last.This method was made popular by the English press in favour of English players.Whether the method is working well or not for Emmanuel is a matter for future deliberation.
Your analysis on this subject is well appreciated and respected,but I rather wish you keep your fingers crossed until such a time.Cheers.
i agree with drey on the fact that cska is not a step down. apart from the big four in premier league, no other english team can guarantee victory against cska moscow. a team that has reached uefa final before is not a small team at all. but talking about him holding on to the ball i want to remind dr drey that some of those claims made by some racist stake holders of the game are coming from hatred and jealousy. robben in netherland during his playing days held the ball sometimes unecesarily even 2010 world cup final is a big example of how his selfish decisions cost the team, while kuyt was more decent in the otherside nobody took anything away from roben neither did any of them tries to undermine his talents which is obviously abordant. thesame case of neymar in the last wcup brazil lost to belgium and neymar selfish play in most ocasions cost them some chances of equaliser, yet he is still considerd as one of the best in the world. even the last champions league final was a big flop betwin him and mbappe. i will advise ejuke not to listen to rubbish from some racist haters. the guy is doing great as a winger and his result is fair enough as a winger playing is first season in holand. all he needs to do is to improve is level of confidents and skills and should keep on making full of their defenders if na dat one dey pepper them. its his trade mark and he can not kill himself. these so called show boating gave messi the edge he have over ronaldo in thesame modern football. they are just trying to make ejuke feel bad of him self and i love one of his response to those idiots. they will always antagonise against africa talents until he becomes unstopable befor they start compromising. imagine how they made musa and iheanacho felt in premierleague uptill now none of them can record musa like goal against barcelona, and iceland (a team that knocked out england in the european nations cup while sterlin couldnt make any defference) even uptill now guadiola havnt been able to justify why he displaced iheanacho for gabriel jesus who for me is not better than iheanacho. most times these complainers are just racist and haters who only likes to decorate their own. they did thesame to JayJay during his playing days costing him awards he obviously deserves, after the legend retires the truth still remains in the mind of football fans worldwide nobody is talking about ikpeba, amunike, deof hadji canavaro etc but jayjay despite no award will reign for ever in the mind of soccer fans. he is been invited every where in the world to come and either showcase skills or play in allstar games and people still celebrate him like a soccer god. that tells you the level of hypocrasy in the game. as for samuel kalu i think the end shall tel