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Sources: Cardiff City, Notts County join race for Jonathan Tomkinson

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The list of interested parties for American defender Jonathan Tomkinson has grown once again.

EFL League One clubs Cardiff City and Port Vale, as well as League Two side Notts County are all interested in him, sources close to the player confirmed to SBI. Tomkinson remains a free agent this summer after his Norwich City contract expired in June.

Fellow EFL clubs Portsmouth, Reading, Stockport County, and Rotherham United have previously expressed interest in signing Tomkinson this summer, sources confirmed to SBI earlier in the summer transfer window.

The Texas native spent the second half of the 2024-25 season on loan at Scottish club Ross County. Tomkinson made 13 Premiership appearances for Ross County but did not feature in the club’s two legged promotion-relegation series with Livingston.

Livingston’s 5-3 aggregate win condemned Ross County to the Scottish second-tier for next season and ultimately ended Tomkinson’s time in Scotland. Ross County previously was interested in potentially signing Tomkinson outright from Norwich City, but the club’s relegation hurt the chances of that move potentially happening.

Tomkinson made three first-team appearances for Norwich City during this time at Carrow Road, while also spending time at lower-league clubs Stevenage and Bradford City on loan. 

A former U.S. youth national team defender, Tomkinson is pushing to make his senior national team debut. He previously featured for the Under-23’s, Under-20’s, and Under-17’s.

Cardiff City suffered relegation to League One while Port Vale earned promotion to League One are finishing second in League Two last spring. Notts County finished sixth in League Two but missed out on promotion.

Comments

    • Because the top 10 teams in the world are full of stars for the best teams in Europe. No reporter in Germany is writing stories about guys who couldn’t make it out of their clubs academy and are being looked at by 3rd and 4th division teams. We have 6 guys who start regularly in top 5 leagues Robinson, Richards, Adams, Scally, Weston, and Pulisic. Only Wes and Pulisic’s teams would be considered contenders. Spain has 6 guys who start at Barcelona another 4 or 5 each from Atletico and then sprinkle in some Chelsea, Arsenal, and Atletic Bilbao. We have a lot more depth than ever but the quality of our top players is still significantly less than the type of nations you need to be to win WCs or even Copa America.

      Reply

    • Getting to “Europe” doesn’t magically make a player better, and the truth is MLS is a very good league, certainly in the top-10 in the world. There are only two teams in League One who, per their payrolls, would be competitive in MLS – Luton Town, which still has a £20.7 million payroll ($27.9M US)…but the reason there is, they get parachute payments from the EPL’s TV revenue to avoid obliterating a club upon demotion…which is 55% of an EPL squad’s revenue the first year, and 45% the second. The other team is Cardiff City (£13.9M, or $18.7M US dollars) which would put them at 13th in MLS.

      After that, the next-richest squad is Huddersfield…with a payroll of £6.7M ($9M US dollars), which puts them three million dollars below the lowest-spending MLS squad, that being Montreal at right at $12M dollars.

      Eurosnobs will try to tell you MLS is “League One level”. Ignore them. There are literally two teams in League One that have an MLS squad’s spending power, and a half-dozen other squads (including feel-good Wrexham) that would rank dead last in MLS spending even in the Championship. You can similarly ignore anybody who tries to tell you that the leagues in Portugal, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Scotland, or even the Netherlands are better than MLS. Those leagues have massive amounts of disparity and will have 2-3 teams max that would be favored against MLS squads, the rest would not be competitive over a season.

      The top five leagues in Europe are better than MLS. Brazil is better than MLS. The Championship is about dead-even. Turkey as a whole is probably better; their top teams are massive, though their bottom ones are very poor.

      So it’s not just about “getting to Europe”. It’s about which squadsyou get onto in Europe, and the reality is that 80%-plus of the teams in European leagues can’t afford to shop for MLS players because they’re too expensive.

      It’s when you get to the monster Champions League squads that you really see the difference. Some of them spend as much as NFL teams – $300M plus a year, and they’re doing it with just 25 or so players.

      Reply

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