Dries Mertens received offers from China and the Premier League, but Adam Digby warns he won’t be the centre of attention there.

“Per il Napoli, segna con il numero quattordici… DRIES!” he bellows into the microphone. “MER-TENS!” comes the reply from the vociferous Stadio San Paolo crowd. Napoli’s stadium announcer Decibel Bellini needs little introduction, the videos of him celebrating goals scored by the Partenopei over the past few seasons have collected millions of hits and are shared repeatedly every time a new one is posted. He even has his own little nicknames for the players.

The man “for Napoli, scoring with the Number 14” has been in rare form this season, making him the most common subject for those viral clips, but how long will that remain the case? Like former Bellini favourites Edinson Cavani and Gonzalo Higuain before him, Mertens has been strongly linked with a summer exit, his future plunged into doubt as various offers emerge.

He has been reportedly offered a new contract by Napoli, the club willing to hand him a four-year deal worth €3.2m per year, the latter figure approximately double his current salary. And so they should. The Belgian has undoubtedly enjoyed the best season of his career, but he has also helped those supporters who gleefully yell his name like good bingo callers on an epic scale forget about Higuain’s exit and kept the team afloat.

While Neapolitans everywhere took the Argentinian’s decision to join bitter rivals Juventus as a personal affront, Coach Maurizio Sarri was much more concerned with finding someone else to score the guaranteed goals that had just left town. Arkadiusz Milik briefly provided a solution, then Manolo Gabbiadini didn’t. The Polish striker tore ligaments in his knee after making a superb start to life in Higuain’s footsteps, his Italian team-mate was quickly sold to Southampton when he then failed to follow in them.

Then came the genius decision to play Mertens as the focal point of Sarri’s 4-3-3 formation, not as a ‘False 9’ but – despite him standing just 5’7” tall – as a genuine out-and-out striker. It paid off spectacularly, the former PSV winger leading the line perfectly, running off the shoulder of the last defender and scoring goals of almost all kinds.

Well, there have understandably been no headers, but he has bagged free-kicks, penalties and tap-ins with equal aplomb, his current tally of 25 in all competition just two short of his career-best haul from back in 2011-12.

But will he stay around once this season ends? Offers from China, Chelsea and Manchester United are apparently on the table, all offering a far more lucrative salary than the one De Laurentiis would hand him if Mertens opted to sign that new deal.

He could stay, with the careers of Marek Hamsik and Jose Callejon perhaps showing him just how beloved a player who chooses to remain under the shadow of Vesuvius can become. Higuain may be thriving with the Bianconeri, but he was always going to be played as a striker by Max Allegri. It took years (and the departure of Zlatan Ibrahimovic) before Cavani was given the opportunity to do the same by PSG, and there are very few big clubs who would allow Mertens to occupy that role on a regular basis.

It is therefore good timing that sees Juventus set to visit the San Paolo twice over the next seven days, as hopefully the reception Higuain receives in those two games might prompt Mertens to have second thoughts. There will be no Decibel Bellini theatrics, just boos, jeers and insults every time his former team-mate touches the ball, the crowd baying for the blood of their former hero as punishment for deserting them.

Does the man scoring in the Number 14 shirt really want that to be his future too?

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