Matt Turner’s puzzling summer has reportedly taken another turn.
Turner is reportedly nearing a loan move back to his former club New England Revolution, The Blazing Musket reported Thursday. Ligue 1 club Lyon is nearing its competition of acquiring Turner from Nottingham Forest, but then would loan him back to MLS as part of the plan, added L’Equipe.
Lyon reportedly failed in trying to overturn Turner’s transfer, which led to the option of loaning him abroad.
Turner would occupy a Designated Player spot on the Revolution’s roster for the remainder of 2025 before New England would then convert him to a TAM (targeted allocation money) player for 2026, according to The Athletic.
His move to Lyon has yet to be finalized after the French club won its appeal against The Direction Nationale du Controle de Gestion (DNCG). The DNCG issued Lyon an administrative relegation to Ligue 2 due to financial issues, however, Lyon won its appeal and will remain in France’s top-flight.
Turner made his name in MLS, previously playing seven seasons for the Revolution. He then made the move to EPL side Arsenal before late earning a transfer to Nottingham Forest.
After losing his starting job at The City Ground, Turner was loaned to Crystal Palace last season, but only made four appearances for the London club.
The 30-year-old’s reduced playing time at club level limited his U.S. men’s national team opportunities this summer. Turner was on the bench for the USMNT’s run to the CONCACAF Gold Cup Final but did not feature in the competition.
A move back to MLS would provide Turner with consistent playing time ahead of a busy 2026, which is headlined by the FIFA World Cup.
MotO,
“it also may be a confidence booster, of which he seriously needed after his fall off the cliff last season with both club and country. ”
Put yourself in Allegri’s shoes.
He had Weston, pronounced him surplus to requirements and wound up using him regularly.
He gets to Milan , and sees Musah with one foot out the door.
Now Musah did not turn into a mess under Allegri’s coaching.
Maybe he says, WTF , I’ll see for myself and give it a shot, showcase him and maybe he’ll surprise everyone.
We all know Yunus’ potential and if Allegri is the guy who can finally tap into that , so much the better.
It’s way too early to say Yunus has saved his spot in Milan but if he can keep building up his confidence, it is a positive for everyone involved.
Toulouse trying to buy Arfsten.
Hoffenheim trying to buy Bryan Reynolds.
Cole Campbell still being pursued by Stuttgart.
This is a good thing. He will play and face a lot of shots. This is another reason for optimism. Timing is coming together.
Turner – would be back playing everyday, which he hasn’t since he played for the Revs and will face a lot of shots becasue they are a dumpster fire with the fans wanting Porter out big time. I’d prefer an inform Turner to anyone else.
Dest – returned from injury
Reyna – nearing a move where they play with a 10 – sometimes 2 10s. He would have every opportunity to succeed at Parma
Musah – seemingly in favor with the new coach as a CM and he even scored a goal in the last friendly
Adams – healthy
Pulisic – healthy (last game niggle notwithstanding) and playing with a chip on his shoulder
Pepi – the starting nine at PSV and healthy and scoring goals
Balogun – healthy, playing and scoring goals
Tillman – given the 10 at Leverkusen
McKennie and Weah will either remain the same or make moves that improve their situation. Hopefully Juventus didn’t screw up Weah’s move so badly it’s irretrievable.
Richards – nailed down starting CB at Palace
Jedi just needs to return from surgery. It seems he’s starting to train again.
Still need a CB to go with Richards but the old guard is looking to come back into form. And if they do all could be well. It’s a new season. Hopes are high and it’s a WC season. These guys will have a fire under their butts.
IV – I know….it was a total “fan boy” post. It’s ok. I like those guys ( you could say I’m a fan of them) and am still holding out hope that they can get the band back together and work some magic.
Vacqui – thanks for the insight of how it works in the world of professional soccer.
I have been pleasantly pleased with Musah getting plemty of minutes in preseason.
“fanboy” to me is more like someone proposing sargent for the 30th time based on club stats. or folks who ignore how bad the defense usually looks, the mediocre midfield. like you can’t be so into the euro-all-star-team idea you ignore how the actual US games go.
i feel like the US has developed a weird status quo bias despite poor present results. like people are very settled on a core that doesn’t get the job done. some of it might be tactics but some is, people like some players who have raw talent but no field position, and who break down or disappear in tough games. and our tactics most days provide no sort of foundation or boost where the thing can kind of win on its own. so we have to work too hard on offense for any chances then give them up too cheaply on defense.
your list isn’t bad, though i think it’s debatable if they all should start and where on the field. and personally i don’t think we’ve figured out what to do with musah, and i am not sure dest is healed well.
Mov, I wouldn’t read too much into Musah’s goal, Perth Glory was dead last in the Australian league last year and subbed all their starters off at half. Milan heavily rotated minutes so might be too early to tell Yunus’s role going forward. Transfer rumors have quieted though so maybe he’s happy with the plan for him.
RE: Musah’s goal – refer to “fanboy” comment. But in all seriousness…it may be nothing but it also may be a confidence booster, of which he seriously needed after his fall off the cliff last season with both club and country. I don’t think he has found the net once in his time at Milan – perhaps in preseasons of the past, hard to find stats on that stuff.
He also started a preseason game versus Arsenal
MoO: one thing though, unless a switch has flipped, one of my beefs is musah is not involved in many goals at all, during either league or NT duty. he then needs to be like a leg breaking 6 who ends all transitions or something. he’s not.
and this is why i talk about 2 way mush. we tolerate little offense from a player who then has not become adams’ constant consistent running buddy.
you know who has started making his case — berhalter. he will go run around and get stuck in, and he has a specific offensive use — dead balls. and so he has almost as many assists for the NT as musah does in a tiny fraction of the caps. and i know he was making some dumb passes, but that can be worked on.
you need a specific position, or you need a “use.” i think there was a point in adams’ absence where musah got looked at as a 6. that stalled out. so what is he.
MotO,
“it also may be a confidence booster, of which he seriously needed after his fall off the cliff last season with both club and country. ”
Put yourself in Allegri’s shoes.
He had Weston, pronounced him surplus to requirements and wound up using him regularly.
He gets to Milan , and sees Musah with one foot out the door.
Now Musah did not turn into a mess under Allegri’s coaching.
Maybe he says, WTF , I’ll see for myself and give it a shot, showcase him and maybe he’ll surprise everyone.
We all know Yunus’ potential and if Allegri is the guy who can finally tap into that , so much the better.
It’s way too early to say Yunus has saved his spot in Milan but if he can keep building up his confidence, it is a positive for everyone involved.
I do think Musah will fit in with Allegris system.
it takes a little bit of humility to come back and reboot, but it’s the old school smart move for NT purposes. we overemphasize club form and it was starting to hurt him. he comes back, gets regular time, knocks off any rust, makes his play for the world cup 1 jersey. negates any career based distinctions people were using to favor freese. now it’s down to who plays well. hopefully.
i assume the purchase option is a formality and perhaps an excuse to work around roster rules or immediate fee expense.
i assume ivacic is gone? it would be cap foolish to keep 2 expensive keepers, and i doubt turner would have signed up for a keeper “competition.”
to me NER is just kind of average across the board, and the defense while mediocre is not bad. porter seems to be critical of the leadership of the defense, like thinking they have the talent but need someone to boss them around. and they are nosing around a U22 striker from israel, with some jukes visible in highlights. is that enough an answer for playoffs?
-Bono at 200,000 would be a pretty expensive 3rd keeper as well. Sounds like they’re going to move Ivacic though. They got him on a free so I wouldn’t be surprised if they just let him go. He’s been pretty feast or famine, great April below average since.
-Kraft doesn’t like to do anything with the Revs, but Porter’s seat has got to be on fire. They’ve won once since May 7 and that was after Montreal red in the 36th minute. 2 pts earned in their last 9 matches, giving up 21 goals in those matches. This after finishing tied for 26th last season. When things go bad Porter tends to blame everyone but himself and that wears fast.
Long suffering Revs fan. IWT against DC United for the inaugural game at Foxboro….The Kraft’s have never really put much interest into the team. Turner would probably be an upgrade. Not many current Revs players were on the team when Turner transferred to Arsenal.
Porter brought in the entire defense. If he’s going to be critical of anyone it should be himself. To be fair, the starting defensive pairing is fine. The second string is comically bad. But the tactics Porter wants to play are ridiculously unsuited to the team he put together so the defense is always under pressure deep in their end.
Matt might save the team a goal or two. He’s a better shot stopper and has much better positioning and anticipation than Ivacic. And he’ll hopefully get some solid game time. But this isn’t going to save the Revs’ season and I really hope it’s doesn’t save Porter’s job.
Porter’s tenure was so brutal with my Crew. That includes an MLS Cup. The last season the whole strategy was to draw fouls around the box so Zelarayan could score a free kick and then bunker the rest of the match to play for a draw. Even the wins were painful to watch. Nancy in 16 fewer matches has 11 more wins scoring 49 more goals and conceding 7 less. If the Revs want to succeed they should fire Porter today and start offering Varas or a Callahan as much as cash as it takes. But they’ll probably retread Vermes because he won an MLS Cup 12 years ago.
Well this has to be the worst DP deal in league history… the Revs are using a DP slot to bring back a player who was on their squad a few years ago, but is now older and worse. New England taking it on the chin for the National Team…
more shallow “club form” analysis based more on depth chart role than actual performance. he played in 4 games last year for his club. allowed 2 goals (0.5 GAA), 2 shutouts. they won every game he played. obvious loser.
to me he got scapegoated for how NL finals and switzerland went. NL finals maybe he gets to that panama goal but not the others. for the swiss friendly the wingback defense was a joke and i’d fault him for maybe the 3rd goal where he doesn’t catch it clean, parries it back out for a rebound goal.
freese, then, he did well in the shootout, but that’s not run of play keeping, and he handed haiti a cheap one, and didn’t exactly scream friedel/ keller/ howard out there.
i dunno i get bored watching US fans follow the day to day career soap opera like it really reflects talent. my guess like pepi we’ll be reversing critique in a couple months.
If the Revs weren’t planning on another DP signing this year it’s probably a good move because they’ll buy him down with TAM for the 2026 and get that slot back, and he’ll just be a Tier 2-player in the million-to-million-five range like most TAM guys, and he definitely is worth that much…even rusty he’ll be one of the top 2-3 keepers in MLS and that is worth some key stops in key games.
Turner’s a really good shot stopper and he bosses the box as well as anybody. He’s just really bad with his feet. Unless the Revs are just pathological about building out of the back he’ll likely be a big plus.