Will we see Papis Demba Cisse in the Premier League next season?

Who is the top scorer in the Bundesliga? Miroslav Klose? Raul? Lukas Podolski? Well, actually it is Mario Gomez, but this guy, Papis Demba Cisse, is second.

The 25-year old, Senegalese international has exploded onto the scene this year. Having bounced to and from FC Metz in France for the early part of his career, he left to join Freiburg for €2 million in the January 2010 transfer window.

Having initially struggled and scored just the six goals last season, his 20 goals in 29 Bundesliga matches in this campaign took the expected relegation strugglers into the European battle and only a defensive record of 11 games without a clean sheet at the other end of the pitch has dropped them out of Europa League reckoning.

It is not just for his club that Cisse has been firing on all cylinders either. He has played just the nine games for Senegal since his debut in August 2009, but he scored two in that game against Congo DR and has now racked up seven goals for his country.

As you can imagine, with a goal scoring record like that, the Premiership has been calling. Mark Hughes was certainly interested in bringing him to Fulham, however his record was so good before Christmas that it appears it has allowed Freiburg to raise the prospective fee out of Fulham’s price range.

Rumours have linked him with Liverpool and Arsenal, who could both afford the prospective £13 million price tag and things took another turn as German Newspaper, Bild, reported yesterday (27^th April) that Freiburg were ready to tout Cisse to potential suitors. A report only strengthened by General Manager, Dirk Dufner saying; ‘You could not blame Cisse for leaving if there is a club that would hand him a much better salary’.

Cisse is very similar to fellow Senegalese international, West Ham’s Demba Ba. They are both big, physical players with a modicum of pace. The biggest difference however is that Ba has proven since joining the Hammers that he would be more willing to play wider than Cisse, who is very much a pure goal-poacher, like Ba was in his Hoffenheim days. Perhaps even more so, casting him as more similar to Andy Johnson of Fulham, albeit a much bigger physical presence. The fact he has scored so many penalties this season is also reminiscent of the way Johnson burst onto the scene with Crystal Palace.

The biggest problem with Cisse is that, for someone who is used in such a singular way, he is a lot more profligate than you would expect of someone who has scored such an impressive amount of goals. Mind you, despite wasting chances, it is to his credit that he is able to get into goal scoring positions enough to score 20 goals and put himself in the shop window of the Premier League clubs.

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