Football is fickle. You can be a Premier League player one minute, and a couple of seasons later you find yourself training with the leaders of the North West Counties Football League Division One South.
This is the fate which befell Oumar Niasse, with the former Everton striker reportedly training with English 10th-tier side West Didsbury & Chorlton in order to maintain his fitness as a free agent who hasn't played a competitive match since January 2020.
His last professional game, a two-minute substitute appearance in the Toffees' 2-2 Premier League draw at home to Newcastle, came just shy of four years after he first arrived in England.
Niasse signed for Everton for £13.5 million ($17.8m) on deadline day of the 2016 winter transfer window, on the back of a strong scoring streak for Lokomotiv Moscow.
He had started out with his local team in Senegal, Ouakam, and fired them from the second division to top-tier champions in the space of three seasons, scoring 102 goals in 154 league games.
Niasse then moved to Europe and while never a prolific or consistent scorer, he put together impressive form in Russia in late-2015 to convince Everton to make him their third-most expensive signing ever.
The hefty price tag, while not his fault, meant that he was immediately placed under pressure to prove his worth.
However, perhaps unsurprisingly for a player who moved to the Premier League midway through the season, he struggled with the pace of English football and was quickly reduced to making cameos from the bench.
Getty ImagesHe also arrived at a time of managerial upheaval and erratic spending at Goodison Park – he was brought in by Roberto Martinez, who was sacked in the summer and replaced by Ronald Koeman.
After watching Niasse blunder his way through a second-half showing in his first pre-season friendly in charge, including hitting the post with a simple chance, Koeman stripped the Senegalese of a shirt number, denied him a locker at the training ground, and publicly stated that the forward should find a new club.
It was a chastening experience for Niasse, who was left understandably dumbfounded by how things went so wrong so quickly for him at Goodison Park.
He told The Guardian in October 2016: “It’s sad, it’s really sad. To be honest, I think I don’t deserve this but what I can do is just keep my head and fight to change things. I’m not going to make a drama over this. I just deal with it. I know it’s just one period.”
Niasse also stated that he wanted to stay in the Premier League, even if it was not with Everton. He got his wish that January as he moved on loan to Hull, scoring four goals in the second half of 2016-17 to prove he had something to offer in England, even as the Tigers were relegated.
The following season was his best in the Premier League, as while the Toffees struggled for consistency after a madcap summer of heavy spending on Davy Klaassen, Sandro, Wayne Rooney and more, Niasse proved himself as a source of key goals, including strikes in comeback wins over Bournemouth and Watford.
With nine goals in 25 matches in 2017-18 – the Merseysiders' second-highest scorer that season, behind Rooney – he appeared poised to go on to even bigger and better things.
He certainly endeared himself to the Everton faithful with his hard work and attitude but the stats from his time in the Premier League, which include 40 per cent shooting accuracy and 0.18 goals per match illustrate where his problems lay, and it was in a bad place for a centre forward.
Of course, the managerial merry-go-round on Merseyside certainly didn't aid his cause. As well as Martinez and Koeman, Niasse also played under Sam Allardyce and Marco Silva during his four years on Everton's books.
Silva looked as dimly on Niasse as Koeman had, moving him out of the first-team picture, and the striker's form suffered badly as a result.
He failed to score in 22 Premier League matches across two seasons from 2018 to 2020, including a failed loan spell with Cardiff. In 2019-20, his last year with Everton, he played 19 senior minutes in total.
While his form fluctuated, though, what never seemed to waver was Niasse's pride in his work. Or, indeed, his connection with the local community.
In a lengthy statement posted on Instagram after leaving Everton, he wrote: "Although my circumstances were public, and personally challenging, I leave with a record of a goal every three games of playing time for the club and I will always incentivise any young black athlete to come to England and perform at the highest level, no matter the difficulties, no matter the challenges.
"I have decided to donate a percentage of my final week’s salary to the St Andrew’s Community Network who operate the North Liverpool Foodbank. They are doing an extraordinary work in very challenging circumstances and they are a reminder that together we can all contribute and play an active and positive role in society."
He was released in the summer of 2020, and after a spell as a free agent, he signed for Championship club Huddersfield in March 2021.
Niasse arrived to much fanfare, manager Carlos Corberan telling the club website: “Oumar has played the highest level of English football for over three years, which means he has all the necessary skills to play in the Championship. He is a striker with the dynamic to work very hard, to press the opponent and attack the space."
However, an untimely injury in training prevented him from appearing for the Terriers before he was released again and, at the time of writing, he remains unattached.
So, Niasse is suddenly out of the professional game and training with amateurs after a combination of bad luck, over-promotion and poor choices on his behalf. Football really is fickle.