Tijjani Reijnders Set for £52m Move to Al-Qadsiah After Brief City Stint

Manchester City are ready to cash in on Tijjani Reijnders, with the Dutch midfielder set for a £52m move to Saudi Pro League side Al-Qadsiah after just one season at the Etihad.

Reijnders arrived from AC Milan last summer as a headline signing, fresh from being named Serie A’s Best Midfielder for 2024/25. City paid £46.5m to bring him in, a deal that underlined their intent to refresh a title-winning squad with proven European quality.

Twelve months on, he is heading for the exit.

His time in England has been brief and ultimately underwhelming, a short chapter in a career that had appeared to be on a steep upward curve in Italy. City have not been afraid to move on big names quickly when the fit is not perfect, and Reijnders now joins a familiar Premier League pattern: the marquee arrival who lasts just a single campaign.

Crespo’s swift Chelsea spin

Hernan Crespo knows that feeling well.

Chelsea made him the glamour name of their seismic 2003 summer, the first major window under Roman Abramovich. The Argentine striker had already carried the weight of a world-record transfer fee at Lazio, then spent a single season at Inter Milan before heading to London.

Crespo’s numbers at Chelsea were respectable: 12 goals in 31 games in his debut season. He scored, he contributed, he looked every inch the elite forward they had signed. But the club was moving fast. The following summer, Didier Drogba arrived from Marseille and the landscape changed overnight.

Crespo was pushed out on loan to AC Milan, a high-profile casualty of Chelsea’s rapid evolution. He did return for the 2005/06 campaign and played his part as Chelsea powered to the Premier League title, only to depart again that summer, this time back to Inter. Two spells, two exits, one lingering sense of what might have been.

Di Maria and the Old Trafford unraveling

Angel Di Maria’s stay at Manchester United was even more dramatic.

United shattered the British transfer record to prise him from Real Madrid in 2014, a defiant response after a miserable first season under David Moyes in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era. New manager Louis van Gaal wanted a statement, and Di Maria – fresh from helping Real Madrid to Champions League glory – was exactly that.

He started like a superstar. Goals, assists, swagger. Then the slide began.

Di Maria later laid bare how quickly things turned sour with Van Gaal. “Things started really well. Everything was flowing,” he recalled. Then came the meetings, the criticism, the focus on what he was doing wrong rather than what he brought to the team. The relationship frayed, his confidence drained, and his form followed.

Life off the pitch offered no refuge. The early darkness, the cold, the infamous break-in at his house – it all piled up. He admitted it made him “hate being there.” When you are not playing, when results are poor, when there are problems inside the club, the weight becomes suffocating.

United cut their losses. After just one season, Di Maria left for Paris Saint-Germain at a £15.7m loss. In Paris, he was robbed again but stayed “another two or three years,” he said, because life there suited him. Manchester never felt that way.

Benteke and the burden of being “the signing”

Christian Benteke walked into a similar storm at Liverpool.

The Belgian striker became the club’s record signing when the Reds triggered his £32.5m release clause at Aston Villa. His numbers in Birmingham were outstanding: 49 goals in 101 games, a powerful, prolific focal point who bullied Premier League defences.

He started at Anfield with purpose, marking his home debut with the winner against Bournemouth. It looked like a natural step up for a striker in his prime.

Then reality bit. The system shifted, the style evolved, and the fit never quite clicked. Benteke found himself as another expensive symbol of a club in transition, his impact judged against a price tag as much as performances.

Reijnders now stands in that same uneasy bracket: a big-money arrival whose Premier League story barely gets beyond the opening chapter. The fee from Al-Qadsiah will soften the blow for City, but the question lingers.

In a league that moves this fast, how many elite players will get just one season to prove they belong?