Super Lig: 10 Forgotten Premier League Stars Who Have Summer Move to Turkey Written All Over Them

​Any competitive football league that counts Hugo Rodallega (who is still somehow only 33 years old?) among its top scorers in the year 2019 really needs to get its head checked. 

The Turkish Super Lig is nuts. And nuts in the most wonderful way. It's what you get if you give the big teams in an otherwise average league £100m to spend in Football Manager, and just let it run to see what happens. 

From a footballing perspective, it can be quite fun to watch. Yes, it might be a purgatory from which seasoned, past-their-best journeymen such as Robinho and Roberto Soldado never seem to return, but it brings a fair amount of heads-gone entertainment value to the table.

Here, we've had a look at a few ​Premier League players who could be heading to Turkey next. 


Yannick Bolasie

SOCCER JPL D27 ANDERLECHT VS CLUB BRUGGE

In many ways, Yannick Bolasie, who is somehow still an ​Everton player, is the exact blueprint of the sort of player who typically swaps the Premier League for Turkey. 

Once a highly rated big-money signing for a middling English club, now approaching his 30s and well past his best having peaked too early, the 29-year-old looks well placed to somehow pop up in Group F of the ​Champions League alongside Emmanuel Adebayor and Demba Ba for Istanbul Basaksehir (that's not a joke, they both actually play there) next season. 


Javier Hernandez

Javier Hernandez

Still floating around the periphery at ​West Ham, Hernandez pops up every now and then with a reminder of the fact he is actually one of the best natural strikers of his generation but just doesn't work hard enough or stay fit enough to justify his surely stratospheric wage. 

He seems likely to head out to Turkey or some other disproportionately financed retirement home league and score 25 goals a season for the rest of his life. He already has the suitable mid-life crisis outlandish hairstyle, so may as well go all in.


Kenedy

Kenedy

A pacey winger who actually isn't all that good, but gets by based on the fact he is Brazilian, and so really it's just a year-long dip in form before he finally realises his potential.

In a few years, he'll be one of these guys that still gets touted by the English media as an up-and-coming prospect despite the fact he's 27 and sitting on the Besiktas bench. 


Steve Mounie

Steve Mounie

Huddersfield have a squad full of wildcard players who look quite good on paper, but in practise end up relegated with 14 points if they're not surrounded by professionals who actually know what they are doing. 

24-year-old Benin international Mounie, who scored twice in 32 appearances this season and took 60 games to get into double figures after his £11m move from Montpellier, is one such player. His career could go one of two ways from here, but if you were to bet on it, you'd say all roads lead to Trabzonspor in 2020.


Vincent Janssen

Vincent Janssen

The Spurs striker flirted with re-introduction to the team after an 18-month absence towards the end of the season, but with Harry Kane returning and his side probably adding some depth to their squad in the summer, his number looks well and truly up.

An average, high-earning striker, past the point in his career where you could see him pressing on to take his game to a new level, he seems like exactly the sort of player a Turkish side would blow £13m and £70k per week on. Especially since he already had a reasonable spell on loan at Fenerbahce last season. 


Oumar Niasse

Oumar Niasse

Another player who previously enjoyed a fair bit of success in Turkey, but hasn't really done anything of note in England in recent memory. 

The Senegal international, once a decent looking striker, managed to not score a single goal in 18 appearances on a loan spell with relegated Cardiff in the second half of the season, and now looks set to leave Everton to see out the remainder of his career in Anatolian exile. 


Eliaquim Mangala

Eliaquim Mangala,Vincent Kompany

Nope, I've got no idea what the picture is about either, and have more questions about it than could possibly fit within an acceptable word count, but let's get to the point: Mangala, shockingly, still plays for Manchester City, and even more shockingly, is only 28 years old. 

He hasn't featured for City since February 2018, due to a combination of injuries and not being very good. Let's be honest, he may as well have 'Fenerbahce' printed on his forehead. 


Christian Benteke

FBL-ENG-PR-CRYSTAL PALACE-MAN CITY

Ever since leaving Liverpool back in 2016 (well, since signing for them a year previously, really)  things haven't really gone to plan for Christian Benteke. Once one of the Premier League's most feared target men, he is now more likely to strike fear into the hearts of Crystal Palace fans when they see his name on the team sheet.

Not for long, however. He is running out of options fast, which poises him perfectly for a two-year loan stint at a Turkish side few can correctly pronounce. 


Alberto Moreno

Alberto Moreno

Out of contract at Liverpool in the summer and with no hope whatsoever of extending his deal (through his own choice, he lies) Moreno is a relic of a forgotten era at Liverpool; one in which the signings they made were generally guff.

Long gone are the days in which the Spaniard kept a fledgeling Andy Robertson out of the team, and forthcoming are the days of him lining up alongside his former keeper Loris Karius, in the bomb-scare defence to end all bomb-scare defences.


Antonio Valencia

FBL-ENG-PR-MAN UTD-CARDIFF

Manchester United captain Antonio Valencia is another who will be leaving on a free this summer, and given the incredible wages he is on, he'll either have to take a massive cut to remain in the Premier League or head abroad to someone who seriously overestimates his worth. 

Approaching his mid-30s, I know what my money is on...


Source : 90min