Matt Turner’s reported move to French club Lyon was set to do wonders for the American goalkeeper but now it looks like he is headed back to the drawing board.
Lyon is fighting to cancel its proposed deal to acquire the U.S. men’s national team shot-stopper, French outlet L’Equipe reported. The Ligue 1 club looked set to pay roughly $9.4 to Nottingham Forest for Turner’s services, but are now concerned about their finances this summer after winning an appeal to stay in France’s top-flight.
Lyon was originally set to be relegated to Ligue 2 following a review from Direction Nationale du Controle de Gestion (DNCG) on their financial situations. The DNCG handed Lyon a provisional administrative relegation to Ligue 2 back in November 2025 and officially ruled on the club’s relegation earlier this summer.
However, Lyon appealed the decision and won, staying in Ligue 1 for the 2025-26 campaign.
Turner desperately needs playing time, especially if he wants to get back into the USMNT picture. The former MLS standout made just four appearances on loan with Crystal Palace during the 2024-25 campaign, featuring only in cup competitions.
He was part of Mauricio Pochettino’s roster earlier this summer at the CONCACAF Gold Cup, but served as a No. 2 to Matt Freese.
Should Lyon officially back out of the race to sign Turner, he will need to find a new situation fast.
Weren’t Lyon under a transfer ban at the time of Turner’s deal?
they got banned for not paying interest on a transfer fee for a player. it was like 2-3 grand, they paid it, and the ban went away in may. they then agreed to sign turner in june just before GC. if they ever put pen to paper i don’t think they escape.
interest sounds like they are broke and borrowing to pay fees. but we know that’s a general problem for this team.
to me what makes sense is a loan or transfer out. the new team pays the contract they don’t want, and they make some money. won’t be much because everyone knows it’s a fire sale. alternative is they pay turner some chunk of his contract just to tear the deal up, then get nothing for letting him leave.
transfer they might also have some degree of control where turner can’t just go down the street to some other ligue 1 team and get revenge this season.
how do i put this. i think the “deal” would stick if turner wanted to be 2 feet up in a barcalounger drawing paychecks for nothing. but i think both sides will find a path where it goes away.
Did you see Kyle Scott played for League 2 Crawley Town vs Crystal Palace today? Richards still on vacation was not involved.
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Noahkai Banks added an assist and drew a penalty adding to his exploits as a get forward marauding CB. You’re going to hate him. But if he’s continues passing like this against real teams and not 3rd division sides he might get a shot to replace Ream.
dude i have been the one saying call banks for months. everyone else are the ones telling me i imagine things.
i suggested reyna, balogun (pre-switch), the tillmans, etc. etc.
i like banks, campbell, and think tomkinson looks interesting but don’t know how he scales up.
I know you think you like Banks, but I’m telling you wont when you actually see him. He wants to get forward and is a better passer than man marker. They’ve only played minnows so far so we’ll see how he does. Still not sure how much time he will get, they played a double header with Essen and most of the other first team defenders were on the other squad?
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Tomkinson is not very good. He’s a free agent and hasn’t been signed at this point with the interest coming from League One. He’d been at Norwich five years and couldn’t break in. Always a chance he’s a late bloomer but …
there was scott and there was some other keeper before gaga at CFC, they signed for chelsea then went on endless loans and it went so well i can barely remember their names and scott ended up USL then lower division england.
i don’t believe in the invisible hand malarkey the club snobs do. there’s snobbery, politics, and other stuff involved. you make the wrong decisions you give up or don’t have much of a career. a lesser player who makes smarter or safer decisions perhaps keeps rising. one time early on in select i had a hat trick first game of the fall on a team that just cut me in the spring. it’s humans making human and sometimes wrong decisions.
pulisic is about the only player i can think of who did well by signing for CFC.
american fans need to get back to just watching soccer and asking themselves does this player look good or not, what’s their skillset. too much stuff on reputation.
Ethan Wady, I don’t think he even plays anymore due to concussions. I do think there’s a big difference between guys who joined academies like Wady and Scott as teens and Miazga or even Slonina. A lot of teenage “stars” don’t make it for a variety of reasons.
Landon Emenalo (17) is with Chelsea U21s this year. He played one camp with the U17s but picked England’s U17s for WC qualifying. He didn’t play much for their Euros team this summer so we’ll see if he makes WC squad. His dad played for San Jose and then worked for Chelsea as technical director and now works for Saudi Pro League. Emenalo was born in US but raised almost entirely in England.
“According to reports, Lyon’s management believes Turner is not at the level to be a starting goalkeeper if Lucas Perri remains at the club, and there isn’t enough room for a backup at that price given the new financial restrictions. They have reportedly hired a lawyer to try and negotiate the cancellation of the deal with Nottingham Forest.”
……Lyon is just a disaster
dissing a player you just signed is a really bad look.
they signed a guy and if they want him to go away the answer is pay him a lot of money or pay another team in a transfer to take the contract over. presumably he was never registered with lyon.
i don’t see how lyon possibly gets out of this cheap. they signed the deal it sounded like. they didn’t get relegated if there was a relegation clause. if they try not paying turner he sues or tries to get them in trouble with UEFA like cannon.
so they are over a barrel. their choices are either pay turner money then tear up the contract, or loan/transfer him out.
to me a lot of this is brave talk to try and make turner leave cheap. there is no real reason for him to make it easy. particularly if they crap talk me in public i’d extract every cent and do them no favors. and the last thing a broke team needs is to buy another keeper atop the one they don’t want to pay.
I was always skeptical about his original move to Arssenal. He simply isn’t good enough to be a starter in the EPL. Now it will boil down to how much of his contract that Forest will be willing to take a hit on to get him off the payroll. He can certainly stay there, and get in a few matches for meaningless cup matches, but if so: he doesn’t make the WC roster.
Lyon never intended for him to be their starter. He needs to get back to MLS.
Woody Johnson just bought a $245 million stake in Crystal Palace. Lyon ownership should have financing to afford Turner after the sale to Johnson?
The transfer was negotiated with Textor before the final rulings from the French association. Textor has been pushed out aT Lyon and now Michele Kang (Owner of Washington Spirit, Lyon’s women’s team, London City Lionesses) is in charge now. Lyon is saying they can’t afford the deal with the new financial restrictions put in place to avoid the relegation penalty. And maybe the new powers aren’t very into Turner and this gives them a possible out.
not going to happen. if palace and lyon started swapping players back and forth UEFA would punt them back out of europe.
plus i don’t think i’d be doing deals with textor’s other teams as a way of escaping this situation.
Who are you responding to? No one suggested those things.