The long-lasting rumors linking up-and-coming American midfielder Emerson Hyndman to the Premier League have finally been confirmed.
AFC Bournemouth announced the signing of Hyndman on Friday after several outlets began reporting the move. The 20-year-old midfielder signed a four-year contract to join the Premier League side side after spending five years at Fulham.
“We’ve moved swiftly in the window to secure Emerson’s signature and we are delighted to have finalized the deal to bring such a promising young talent to AFC Bournemouth,” AFC Bournemouth chief executive Neill Blake stated. “Emerson is a highly rated young player and already boasts international experience, so will be a welcome addition to Eddie and Jason’s squad. We now look forward to seeing him in action at Vitality Stadium in of our second season in the top flight.”
Hyndman maded 15 appearances for Fulham this season, with most of them coming before the January transfer window, when rumors first swarmed about the American not agreeing to a contract extension.
The midfielder was recently called in to USMNT camp for the Copa America Centenario warm-up matches, and came off the bench in the 3-1 win in Puerto Rico.
What do you think of Hyndman’s move? How do you think he will do in the Premier League?
Share your thoughts below.
Good move for Hyndman
They are among the teams with limited (low) budgets that play attractive football on the floor thats well liked by everyone.
Swansea, Norwich, Southampton, Burnley and West Ham (pre-Allardyce) are others that play sexy football on shoestring budgets. It might not get results week in, week out but you hope they stay up playing this way instead of playing not to lose.
I checked a couple Bournemouth fan message boards, not much discussion they seem more focused on the Euros, but it was mostly positive. Some talk that he might be still loaned out to the Championship for another year.
Good for Emmo. His biggest problem has always been his ability to get around the field fast enough in order to get touches. He is a great success story. Very similar to Pulisic and Bradley in that he sacrificed so much to be successful.
Good move – should be in the mix for playing time from the start.
All depends on his ability to adapt to the speed of play. He has all the tools to play CM for this club. But they play at an extremely fast pace, even for the epl, and a lot of their attacking transitions flow through the center. They’re basically a poorer version of BVB.
I think he can though. During the second Olympic playoff game, he was probably the only us player to try and think 2 steps ahead and anticipate the colombians. Couldn’t execute, his technical game was off, but you saw the good things he was trying to do.
wow, i think that’s a great move for him. looks like i’ve got one more team to follow next season.
I’ll see you Saturday mornings on the running commentary ready to defend our American against the pundits lol 🙂
yessir. please tell me they’re moving you off the sunderland beat?
haha yea as soon as news of yedlin not returning to Sunderland is released… Otherwise I’ll be pulling double duty next season… :-/ … lol…
Yedlin’s gonna have a huge opportunity in this game on Tuesday… If he can pull off a great performance then I think people will see him and give him a chance to win that right back spot either at Tottnham or elsewhere. Thus far, his tournament has been middling (handball, decend game vs. paraguay… then the 2 yellows… so he needs a great performance.
As long as he sees the field with the 1st team on a consistent basis I’m fine with this move. Hyndman needs to get 1st team minutes in order to continue his progression. 2 full seasons playing in the BPL could see him advance into real consideration come the 2018 WC.
A midfield that has the ability to rotate players like Bradley, Nagbe, Bedoya, Williams, & Hyndman, should be able to keep our players fresh while also enabling us to match up both physically and technically.
Let’s not forget Zelalem, Pulisic, and Joe Gyua if he can ever get healthy. The future (may be) is bright!
I really believe that as more of the younger generation (Pulisic, Hyndman, Zelalem, Green, etc…) mature and advance into the Sr. team that our player pool will really favor a 4-3-3 formation where players like Pulisic, Morris, Gyau, Green, are wide forwards with someone like Wood, Jozy, or Zardes playing the more physical central role. All have the ability to float/interchange making it difficult for the opposition to track runners.
To my way of thinking we’d have 3 CM type midfielders….one #6 and two #8s that are tucked in allowing for the outside backs to overlap down the flanks. It’ll take players with a huge work rate, stamina and positional discipline….but I think with a bit more maturity and experience that having Bradley sitting deep with some combination of Nagbe, Hyndman, Zelalem, Bedoya, etc…. in front of him and the likes of Yedlin & Fabian bombing forward from the back could be very, very effective.
The first task is getting enough of these young guys to the point where they are able to really compete at the level they’ll need to be at. Then making sure that there is a good rotation of the players to keep them fresh enough to play this type of pressing soccer.
Agree completely. Its nice being able to see some wide talent finally developing on the wings. Seriously, except for Donovan and Beasley (I don’t count Dempsey; he was shoehorned into a wide role against his will by countless managers) have we ever had decent wingers?
Keep an eye out on Perez at Fiorentina and Wright at Schalke. Both have been becoming the jewels of their youth team (have been contributing at similar rates as Pulisic before he was called up to the seniors) and are rumoured to being brought along for their clubs preseason tours.
I would love to see next year a Wright vs Pulisic Rivierderby.
Of course they are still babies and only some of them will actually improve substantially.
Don’t forget to add Kekuta Manneh into the wide wingers mix. I like him more then Nagbe
This is potentially a great move for me professionally. 3 years ago SBI sent me to cover every Sunderland game…. After suffering through that I am lining up a move to covering AFCB next season.
Hip hip……?!
Bournemouth was actually pretty good and open. Not a Sunderland type team. This is a great move.
LOL…
elaborate…
Merely laughing at a Sunderland slight….. Is that allowed?…
No
It certainly is. Is asking someone to elaborate on a remark allowed? He isn’t all wrong in his comment… the second half of last season under Sam they played much better and fought off relegation. I enjoyed watching them late in the season.
As usual there was no snark towards you when I asked of laughing was allowed. It was merely a running joke reference. Sorry you took it as being directed at you.
Big SAMs transfers completely changed their chemistry yes but that wasn’t really the topic.
Someone mentioned Sunderland, I (cheaply) threw a harmless lol at it. U asked to elaborate and I did while also adding to my cheap joke (“am I allowed to laugh?”).
That is all
🙂
As usual there was no snark towards you when I asked of laughing was allowed. It was merely a running joke reference. Sorry you took it as being directed at you.
Big SAMs transfers completely changed their chemistry yes but that wasn’t really the topic.
Someone mentioned Sunderland, I (cheaply) threw a harmless lol at it. U asked to elaborate and I did while also adding to my cheap joke (“am I allowed to laugh?”).
That is all
Your lol wasn’t directed at me, snarky maybe but I don’t know that for sure. You asked if LOLing was ok and while I think loling is for girls I said it was perfectly fine and simply wondered in return if asking you to elaborate was OK. All you needed to do was elaborate or not, I wasn’t sure why you were loling as his statement was fairly accurate. No big deal, that’s all.
Agreed on SA they will only get better under him.
Well, to be fair, Big Sam has always been a defense first kind of guy. I think that is a perfect spot for a guy like Yedlin who sometimes get too much caught up in the joy of going forward to the detriment of his defensive responsibilities.
Big Sam droll as he is has helped Yedlin make better decisions about going forward and I am sure has made it clear that a full back must defend first.
While I am glad he will go to a tram where he will get plenty of time at a higher level. I am not so informed about their playing style. Do they bunker and counter or actually play?
In a lot of ways I’m not sure it matters much to Hyndman’s development. Unlike Jozy who needs service to be effective (as does almost any striker) Hyndman is a holding midfield. No matter what style AFC play we at the least can expect his defense to improve, and his vision and pace of play simply from the higher level of the BPL. That is, if he forces his way on the field.
With all due respect, it absolutely matters. A CM at bournemouth, plays different than a CM at Sunderland, who plays different than a CM at Arsenal.
This all matters because at 20 years old, he is still in a pretty malleable stage in his development, and will be crucially developing his instincts. Will his instinct be to look up and play a long pass to a streaking winger? To play it to the feet of a holding forward? To carry it forward and play combinations with CAMs? To be the CAM? To be deeper? All of this will dictate what kind of player he becomes.
That’s a fair point Mac, but at the same time I think that has more with a coach’s ability to develop young players than the system he actually uses in games. Fact is bunker and counter is a strategy used by some of most successful teams in Europe ie Atletico Madrid and this season at Leicester.
Absolutely the coach’s abiltiy to develop matters… but again, that is dependant on club (see what I did there lol).
As to tactics, we can debate all day long. But I will say this: Leicester is an anomaly. They didn’t see a single injury or suspension to a key player until they were safely 9 points up in april (first time Ulloa and okazaki played together was that game). Atleticp Madrid may play like that against bayern and barca in CL, but they don’t play like that against the granadas eibars. They dominate posession and generate chances through creative play against basicly 90% of the teams they face. And while they’ve one la liga once, they’ve failed twice in 3 years to win the CL.
Bunker and counter is a great system for middling teams to utilize and exploit the mistakes of better/arrogant teams, and climb out of mediocrity. Its the system Klopp used to bring BVB back; and the us used under arena and bradley.
The problem is, that its a a system that reacts to mistakes, and exploits space due to arrogance. If your opponent limits their mistakes, and sits deep, the system is dead (Real forced Atletico to build slowly in the CL; clubs stopped trying to out-counter Klopp, and were content to play to a draw; and countris began to respect the US and didn’t give them nearly as much space to counter)
This is why every team eventually has to step past bunker, and develop a style that allows them to play on their terms, to be proactive, not reactive. Incidently, Ranieri knows this; he is scouting la liga and ligue 1 like crazy to get more guys like mahrez. More creative types, less work horses. (By the way if any of this sounds conceded or snarky, i apologize, not ny intention)
Not at all. It’s this type of discussion that keeps me coming back to this site. And in so many ways I agree with your assessment. At the same time if Hyndman isn’t good enough to see the field for the best teams I’d rather him be at lower level bunkering squad. I think simply playing (as long as he’s playing) in the BPL will force him to make big strides in his development.
Absolutely. And don’t get me wrong, playing time IS very important. It is. But at 20 years old, what kind of training, and who you’re getting it from (doesn’t have to be the big clubs; many 2.Bundesliga clubs have great facilities and trainers) is just as, if not slightly more important, (sprinkled in with occasional minutes during cup matches). You still make developmental leaps forward at that age.
At about 22-23 is when I think you really need to be playing week in, week out. At that point you HAVE to take whatever system, club, etc. that’ll play you. Thank god Bobby realized this in time.
Anthony I’m not sure if your comment about bunkering and actually playing was a slight of some sort but if you watch the BPL they have a pretty good young coach and aren’t afraid to play, they were fun to watch last season.
As for our last conversation, the us SHOULD have beat Ecuador and they DID.
Literally best club he could’ve transfered to. Young, low budget team that survived the drop, that I think with more moves like this will make them the next Leicester. Maybe not winning the league, but they have great club philosophy, and one of the best tactically modern managers from UK, arguably since fergie.
They play fast, possession soccer, similar to the Germans at the WC, and the style I think jk is trying to instill.
In case you can’t tell, I’m super excited by this move. The only other club I was unreasonably hopeful for him going to was bvb. I can see Hyndman, with right development, being our gundogan.
Bournemouth has one of the nicest passing teams of the lower tier BPL teams. Their remarkable rise has been due to securing players with the same mentality and playing style (very British dominated lineup), and imposing a passing game that emphasizes the movement of the whole team and hard work. I get up early to watch them because I really enjoy the soccer they play. Eddie Howe has been something of a genius, taking the team from the lowest level to the BPL while still in his 30s. Amazing story.
I didn’t watch them enough as I’d like to last year, but they are quickly becoming my second favorite team next to Southampton(although I haven’t really enjoyed them as much under koeman). Great philosophy, great manager who is only going to improve with more experience.
Great move, will challenge for playing time from the start