The English Premier League will have two returning Americans next season after Fulham clinched automatic promotion back to the top-flight on Wednesday.
Fulham’s 3-0 home victory over Preston North End guaranteed the London club a top-two finish in the English Football League Championship. U.S. men’s national team defenders Tim Ream and Antonee Robinson played key roles for Marco Silva’s side this season and will have another crack at the Premier League this August.
Ream, 34, has played in all 42 league matches to date this season, logging one goal and two assists. The veteran centerback recently made his 250th club appearance for Fulham and has been one of the best at his position in the second division.
The 24-year-old Robinson has not started in each of the last two matches, but that hasn’t taken anything away from his role at left back in 2021-22. Robinson has scored two goals, registered four asissts, and logged 33 league appearances this season, starting for majority of the campaign.
Both players will now aim to help Fulham win out in its final matches to finish top of the league table. Fulham has totaled 86 points, 98 goals scored, and is tied for allowing the second-fewest goals this season (37).
Fulham has yo-yo’ed from the top two divisions in England over the past six seasons, being relegated from the Premier League in 2019 and 2021. Ream has been a part of the Fulham squad in each of the last two promotions while Robinson was acquired at the beginning of the 2020-21 season.
Up next for Fulham is a trip to second place Bournemouth on Saturday before final matches against Nottingham Forest, Luton Town, and Sheffield United.
Jedi has had a crazy few years. Didn’t get higher than Everton U-23s. Moved to Fulham on permanent transfer after a few loans, 1st US match gets an assist (Weah), became captied to his father’s country, became a starter for the US. Played well for his club, (especially 21-22), had a baby, got engaged, helped the US qualify for the WC. Now, helped Fulham get promotion with matches in hand. (To be fair, Fulham is 1 of 7 clubs, who move up & down thru the Premiership & Championship divisions every year). Still a good achievement, no matter my criticism. Didn’t he have a heart condition that nixed his transfer to Serie A (AC Milan)?
Irregular heart beat, he was going to have surgery to correct it but then Covid closed hospitals to non-emergency surgeries. By the time hospitals had reopened it had corrected itself. I might have something not quite right but that was the basic story.
Is this Tim’s last real season then? Only made 7 EPL appearances last season and will now be 35 in October. If he wasn’t athletic enough last time he’s unlikely to be 2 years later.
You know Fulham history with Ream as well as I do. They will keep him on the roster but won’t play him half as much in the Premier league. If we see Fulham sign a CB of significant quality, that will be evidence enough for me. …or they’d be silly and not sign anyone like Greuther Furth did when they moved up. Lol
Agreed with this assessment. If you remember their last EPL campaign was disastrous from the get-go and management openly stating the defense simply wasn’t good enough and they were looking for reinforcements. I don’t recall if those ever came though?
If memory serves the first time they brought in replacements but neither panned out and Tim played most of the season. Last year, they brought them and stuck with them thru April and then gave Ream some starts at the end once they were going down. I just don’t see him sitting out most of next year and then being a regular if they go back down at age 36.
What is so odd is Furth made a big stink about not letting Green go to the GC and then almost immediately benched him.
Fulham played Ream 43 times this season.
43 games in a promotion winning season. In a league where the competition is probably tougher than it is in the USL.
If Ream sucks so much why would Fulham trust him for so many games during such an vital season? They had all season to replace him.
No one is that sentimental. Not in the Championship with a ticket back to the EPL at stake.
He must be doing something right for Fulham.
He’s never been a great USMNT player but he’s never really been on a decent USMNT team either, so I view his USMNT career as a wash.
He won’t be the first or last player who was great for their club but not so great for their national team.
Vacqui, he’s been their go to for each of their recent promotion seasons and been replaced by transfers at the start of the next season. Only to return to the lineup for the Championship season after being relegated. The issue is really athleticism at this stage in his career. The way the US isolates it’s CBs with basically them splitting half the field to defend he is just not fast enough, nor is he good enough going forward to play as a LB.
Fully expect that over the summer Fulham will end up selling Ream. He proved last time they were promoted that he wasn’t capable of contending with the EPL speed of play. The question will be if he’s sold to a Championship league club or if he’ll be sold back to MLS to end his career.
My guess is that he’ll come back to MLS, play the remainder of this season, and possibly 1 more before retiring and get into coaching.
Yes their captain and basically worth nothing if they sell him. If he wants to go it will be a free but I imagine he’ll stay until he retires. He’ll get a couple cup starts and an injury replacement here or there but I don’t see him going down to Championship, he’s got nothing to prove there.
” The issue is really athleticism at this stage in his career. The way the US isolates it’s CBs with basically them splitting half the field to defend he is just not fast enough, nor is he good enough going forward to play as a LB.”
I don’t get why you’re arguing with me. It’s indisputable that he’s been worth every centavo for Fulham. He’s a big part of getting them to the EPL in the first place. Boom, that’s a ton of money right there.
As far as I can tell none of other Fulham players or coaches on those teams have been very good once they got to the EPL either. They’ve all collectively sucked.
As for his declining “athleticism”. Jesus H. Christ, what athleticism??
I’ve watched him since he was a Red Bull and even then athleticism and Tim were unfamiliar with each other.
He’s a very , very smart player who was very well respected by his coaches at Bolton and at Fulham and managed to carve himself out a pretty respectable niche.
He’s never been outstanding for the USMNT mostly in my view because the schemes have never fit him and he never gets a lot of time to work with the defense the way he does at Fulham. And he needs that time because he’s never been very “athletic”.
He’s just a really good soccer player
The only reason he ever got capped in the first place was someone thought he might be that deep lying playmaker that Jackson Yueil never was. Tim had a great “line breaking diagonal ball ” but I rarely see it anymore.