Lembikisa heads to Switzerland

Dexter Lembikisa will spend the 2024/25 campaign in Switzerland after completing a season-long loan move to Yverdon Sport.

This will be the third loan spell for the 20-year-old, who spent the previous season competing in the Championship with Rotherham United before moving north of the boarder to join Scottish Premiership side Hearts.

During his time with the Millers, Lembikisa established himself as a regular in the second tier of English football and scored his first senior goal in a 2-1 victory over Norwich City last September. He went on to make 27 appearances in all competitions before a mid-season switch to Hearts arrived in January.

While in Scotland, Lembikisa added another 18 outings to his growing collection of senior appearances and found the net twice – including a goal on his debut to help the side to a 3-2 win over Dundee.

A Wolves Academy graduate, Lembikisa has been with the Old Gold since the age of 13 and progressed through the youth set-up to appear four times for the first-team, while the right-back has also become a full international in recent years.

Lembikisa is a regular in the Jamaican national team and represented his country at this summer’s Copa America and has also spent the last two weeks with Jamaica as part of their CONCACAF Nations League campaign, helping the team to a clean sheet in his appearance against Cuba on Saturday.

After gaining experience in the UK, Lembikisa will now get a taste of football on the continent by joining the Swiss Super League side, which head of professional football development, Matt Jackson, thinks will provide the defender with a new environment to what he’s been used to so far in his career.

“This is going to be a different type of loan for Dexter from what he experienced last year with Rotherham and Hearts, and I’m really pleased that he’s jumped at this opportunity to expand his own horizons, in a football sense and in a living sense as well,” Jackson said.

“The Swiss league is more technical than what he’s been used to, but he showed he can play in the Championship with that frenetic pace and intensity they have, the same with the Scottish Premiership.

“But now he’s in the situation where he’s going to a slightly more technical league where it will be slower paced for him, but he will see a variation of player up against him. He’s obviously got great international experience now as well, and he’ll continue to add to that and this just becomes another part of his football development.

“We like our boys to have as many opportunities as possible and the fact that he’s so keen to go out there and try something different shows who he is as a character and what we think of him.”

By joining Yverdon, Lembikisa will be reunited with his former academy teammate Christian Marques who made the permanent switch from Molineux 12 months ago, and Jackson believes having a familiar face already at his new club will help him quickly settle into a new environment.

“From my own time in Switzerland last year with Zurich, I know how well Yverdon did in the league and also how well they’ve done with Christian, who’s playing regularly for them.

“We like the boys who go out on loan to be tested, but we don’t like things to be impossible for them, and having Christian there with him will hopefully make it an easier transition at the start.

“They’ve played a lot of football together, they’re close as well, so it will be good from that perspective. It’s certainly not paramount for us, but it’s an added bonus in this instance.

“The club is very good and they’ve been creative with their scouting, very professional in their dealings with us, and we think it will be a great next step for Dexter.”