Both players are facing a long spell without any club playing time
One day after he shut out Oman with the U.S. men’s national team, the harsh reality of Ethan Horvath’s club situation became apparent.
Nottingham Forest omitted Horvath from its 25-man Premier League squad on Wednesday, further reinforcing how far the 28-year-old is from club minutes.
The Colorado native missed out behind the club’s current starter, his international teammate Matt Turner, as well as the newly signed Odysseas Vlachodimos and Wales international Wayne Hennessey.
Horvath started last season while on loan at Luton Town, helping the club earn promotion to the Premier League. The Hatters opted against making the move permanent, however.
Horvath is now ineligible to play in the Premier League again until January at the earliest. With Forest already eliminated from the Carabao Cup and FA Cup minutes looking unlikely, Horvath is facing several months without any club playing time.
The only hope of avoiding that fate is a late move to the increasingly small number of leagues where the summer transfer window is still open.
Horvath has earned nine USMNT caps in his career, and served as Turner’s backup at the World Cup last year.
Steffen makes Man City’s PL squad
In a somewhat surprising move, USMNT goalkeeper Zack Steffen was named to Manchester City’s Premier League squad.
Steffen joined starter Ederson, as well as Scott Carson and Stefan Ortega as the Premier League champions’ four goalkeepers.
But don’t expect Steffen to see the field for City. The goalkeeper is still working his way back from knee surgery in June, and has previously expressed his desire to leave City permanently after playing with Middlesbrough on loan last season.
Turner needed to make a statement after Forest signed Odysseas Vlachodimos from Benfica
Matt Turner needed to make a statement on Saturday, one day after Nottingham Forest brought in some real competition for his place in goal.
A clean sheet and a victory against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge? That’ll do.
Forest beat Chelsea 1-0 in a league encounter, as Anthony Elanga’s goal just after halftime sealed an upset win for Steve Cooper’s side.
Turner wasn’t called upon too much in the game, but did everything asked of him and made two saves. The U.S. men’s national team starter had to be particularly alert late in the match, as he saved at his near post from Thiago Silva.
MATT TURNER SAVE 🧤🌳🇺🇸 Bergen County Buffon stops Thiago Silva near post, winds up getting shutout win at Stamford Bridge. Forest leapfrog Chelsea to reach 9th in table. Amazing momentum for Turner & Forest heading into international break. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/11ySxMIbsK
It was Turner’s first career Premier League clean sheet in his fourth start. The timing couldn’t have been better, as the USMNT No. 1 now looks to have some real competition for his starting role.
On Friday, Forest signed Odysseas Vlachodimos from Benfica in a deal worth a reported €8 million.
Vlachodimos is not the kind of goalkeeper who will join Forest expecting to be a backup. The Greece international made well over 200 appearances for Benfica over five seasons, winning two Portuguese league titles and helping the club reach the Champions League quarterfinals twice.
Turner would appear to have a slight advantage right now, as the incumbent who has put together a strong start to the season. But any slip-up will open the door for Vlachodimos, who has the quality to seize the job himself.
The USMNT man will have to be at his best all season and in his first four Premier League games at least, he’s been at the level he’ll need to hold off some stiff competition.
The USMNT goalkeeper made just seven appearances in his lone season with the Gunners
Matt Turner says that Arsenal made it clear to him: If he wanted to play, he was going to have to leave.
Following just one season with the Gunners, the U.S. national team’s starting goalkeeper departed last week in a transfer to Nottingham Forest that could be worth up to £10 million.
Just days after completing the move, Turner made his Premier League debut in a familiar place. Coincidentally, Forest’s opening game of the season was away to Arsenal, with Steve Cooper’s side falling 2-1 after first-half goals from Eddie Nketiah and Bukayo Saka.
Turner made just seven appearances in his lone season with Arsenal, serving as Aaron Ramsdale’s backup. At 29 years old, the USMNT No. 1 isn’t in a place where he can afford to wait around too long for playing time. Speaking to ESPN, Turner said he began to look for a way out of Arsenal after an offseason conversation with club hierarchy.
“I think for me it was something that was definitely on my mind,” he said. “I wanted to go and play and find places to play, but at the end of last season when I brought that up it very much seemed like it wasn’t on the cards from conversations with the front office, staff members.
“If there was ever a league in Europe that I wanted to play in it was this one, so it’s been a goal of mine to prove myself in the Premier League and hopefully I can do that for 37 more games.”
AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth
Turner was clear-eyed about his debut season, admitting that he didn’t feel he did enough to surpass Ramsdale as the club’s starter — though he was satisfied with his performances when given an opportunity.
Asked if he regretted not playing more at Arsenal, Turner said: “Sure, but obviously I didn’t do enough to earn that so I’m self-aware enough. I thought I did well in the opportunities that I had to play.
“But again, the team is at the top of the table for most of the season and when that’s the case you don’t really change the goalkeeper very much.”
Still, Turner said he was happy with his experience in north London, saying it helped him become the USMNT’s starter at the 2022 World Cup and has led to him getting a shot to start in the Premier League.
“It helped me to become number one for the national team and play in the World Cup and that was always the goal,” he said, “and now I’ve found myself playing in the Premier League at another club.”
Forest’s first match of the Premier League season, a trip to Arsenal, was not a favorable one for a team that only just barely avoided relegation last season. In that context, a 2-1 away defeat really isn’t all that bad.
However, for Turner — plugged immediately into the lineup by manager Steve Cooper — it would have been some kind of dream to walk back into his old digs and put one over on a club that never gave him a shot in Premier League play.
That wasn’t meant to be, with Arsenal scoring one goal through some good fortune, and the other through unstoppable skill. In other words, a goalkeeper’s nightmare.
First, the luck. Gabriel Martinelli’s spinning pass was a piece of genius, and Eddie Nketiah’s cut inside was incisive. What followed, though, was cruel for Turner: Nketiah’s shot towards the far post — where Turner was just starting to dive — glanced off of Joe Worrall and skewed instead back where the USMNT No. 1 had come from.
BRILLIANT skill from Gabriel Martinelli to set up Eddie Nketiah’s goal! 🤩 #AFC
Goals like that are torture for goalkeepers, but maybe Turner will think a bit less about what was to follow. It’s one thing to have a shot deflect just barely out of your reach, and another to see Bukayo Saka score a world-class curler from 20-plus yards. There’s just not much Turner or anyone else could do on a shot like this one.
It wasn’t all bad for Turner, who did well to deny Declan Rice three different times. The second was particularly tricky, as Rice’s low shot got through traffic and clipped Worrall, but the former Arsenal ‘keeper still managed to tip it wide.
Turner made five saves in all, and will likely enjoy a few days to get settled into life in Nottingham before focusing on Forest’s next match. In its own way, it’s a big one: home against Sheffield United in what looks like a clash between two teams who will need every point they can get to stay up.
Turner needed to escape Arsenal to get minutes, but nothing will be guaranteed at Forest
Matt Turner’s time at Arsenal is over after just one year, with the U.S. national team goalkeeper completing a transfer to Nottingham Forest reportedly worth up to £10 million.
Turner has signed a four-year deal with the Premier League side.
“When I heard that there was interest to bring me here, it just felt right for my family, it felt right when my agent spoke to me about it and it feels like the right move for me right now,” the 29-year-old told the club’s website.
For Turner, getting out of Arsenal was a must if he wanted any semblance of playing time this season. His debut season in north London saw him make just seven appearances, five of which came in the Europa League. With the Gunners in the Champions League this season, Turner’s minutes were likely to be reduced even more.
#NFFC is delighted to announce the signing of @USMNT international Matt Turner 🇺🇸
At Forest, Turner will undoubtedly have a clearer path to playing time than he did at Arsenal. But he may not have an unchallenged starting spot waiting for him either.
Multiplereports have said that irrespective of Turner’s arrival, Forest is still pursuing a move for Manchester United’s Dean Henderson.
That could be bad news for Turner, as Henderson impressed with Forest last season on loan before an injury cut his season short. Steve Cooper’s side may have to pay even more than it did for Turner to secure Henderson on a permanent basis.
If Henderson does arrive, it appears he and Turner will be in a battle for the starting role. That’s certainly an improvement over last season, when Turner was the unquestioned backup to Aaron Ramsdale, but it also means he’s not guaranteed to play a whole lot more at his new club than he did with Arsenal.
Another strange wrinkle to this deal is the presence of Turner’s USMNT teammate Ethan Horvath at Forest. After helping Luton Town to promotion last season, the newly minted Premier League club turned down the chance to sign Horvath permanently. Turner’s arrival at Forest will now help push Horvath even closer to the exit door.
For Turner, Horvath and any other goalkeeper who wishes to start for the USMNT (ahem, Zack Steffen), minutes are a must. Turner has made a positive step in that direction, but he’ll still have to earn his place as a Premier League starter.
USMNT keeper Ethan Horvath has helped yet another soccer club get promoted to the Premier League.
U.S. men’s national soccer team fans got to see goalkeeper Ethan Horvath play a crucial role in helping Luton Town F.C. get promoted to the English Premier League on Saturday at Wembley Stadium.
Horvath has been recently manning the net for Luton Town while he’s on loan from Nottingham Forest, the team that he helped get promoted to the Premier League last season.
This season, Horvath and the Hatters made it all the way to the English Football League’s championship. In the game, Luton Town earned a 6-5 win on penalties over Coventry City to get called up to the Premier League.
Some teams are having a blast, while others are going through it
The Premier League is getting down to the nitty-gritty.
The end of the season is approaching, with most teams having five or six games left to secure a trophy, a spot in Europe, or just keep themselves in the top flight for another year.
For some teams, the end of the season was expected to be a pressure-cooker, but has instead been something of a celebration. For others, it’s one last chance to fight their way to safety, or at least salvage some pride in an otherwise disappointing season.
Here’s where everyone stands heading into the last month of the 2022-23 season.
Late deadline day paperwork left O’Brien in limbo until a move to MLS materialized
Lewis O’Brien is not supposed to be in the outskirts of Leesburg, Virginia, speaking to a reporter a day before jetting off to Florida.
The plan was for the 24-year-old, at this point in April, to be winding up a a day after training, preparing for a critical Championship clash between Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End.
Instead, a bizarre set of circumstances involving the transfer deadline, squad registration, a series of appeals, and a desire to get games has ended with O’Brien joining D.C. United for an unusual (for MLS at least) short-term loan that runs through July 16. The away day coach trip featuring an inevitable traffic jam has been replaced by a flight to places like Montréal and Orlando.
Speaking to Pro Soccer Wire, O’Brien said the whole experience has been “strange,” but repeatedly circled back to one main point: “I’m now at D.C. happy, playing football again, so that’s all that really mattered in the end.”
O’Brien’s had an eventful year or so. Off the field, he got engaged in December. On it, he was thriving, playing nearly every minute for Huddersfield in the 2021-22 Championship season and earning a transfer to the Premier League. Nottingham Forest, who beat Huddersfield in the promotion playoffs, paid a reported $12.3 million in a summer transfer for both O’Brien and Harry Toffolo.
Despite Forest’s massive influx of new players, O’Brien started the first five games of their season, and scored his first-ever Premier League goal in September.
However, Forest’s battle to stay up has seen manager Steve Cooper cycle through his options, and after a reported illness, O’Brien saw his minutes drying up.
“I was never going into this club thinking I’m gonna play every game, right? It doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to work for it,” said O’Brien. “At that moment in time, for me to carry on pushing and carry on my career, to come back and help Nottingham Forest — hopefully in the Premier League at the end of the season — the best option for me was to go out and play football.”
O’Brien said that he and Forest agreed that a loan was the best solution. Heading into the last days of the winter transfer window, he said that Cooper and club staff were regularly in touch.
(Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)
“We were always agreeing on what was going to happen, and [they told me], ‘keep your phone close, just in case,'” recalled O’Brien.
That eventually turned into a call summoning O’Brien on deadline day. A loan move to Blackburn was close enough that with the deadline looming at 11:00 p.m., he had to get up to his prospective new club for a medical.
“I was there at [Blackburn’s] training ground,” said O’Brien. “I think on all sides — Forest, Blackburn, my side — we’d all assumed that it was done.”
An English Football League chronology of events produced during the appeals process said that O’Brien’s medical took place around roughly 9:00 p.m., and he said he stuck around until the transfer window closed, unsure of what was to come.
“Because of the time — it was, I think 11 o’clock, by the time everything had finished up, which is actually the deadline of the actual transfer window — they just said ‘Everything will get sorted, we’ll contact you in the morning.’ So I drove home not really knowing what’s going on…it was kind of all up in the air.”
That’s putting it lightly. The EFL eventually concluded that relevant paperwork from Blackburn didn’t arrive until 11:28 p.m., meaning they had missed the deadline and could not register him as a new player. Forest, meanwhile, had to register their own 25-player list to the Premier League, and on the assumption that O’Brien’s loan would have no issues, submitted a roster without him.
O’Brien suddenly went from seeking more playing time, to needing to find a club that could put him on the field at all.
With little else to do, O’Brien said he spent a couple of days at home waiting to hear whether the issue could be sorted out. Blackburn sent word that they were launching an appeal, but while that process played out O’Brien was stuck. He rejoined Forest for training, but that was about all he could do.
“It was tough. It was really tough,” O’Brien said when thinking back to a February spent in limbo. “It was strange. I had to go into training every day and work my hardest to stay fit… for me to come in every day and train, but still not know if I was going to be available to play for Blackburn, it was a strange feeling.”
Weeks went by, and while Blackburn kept up their appeals, every new one filed meant a longer wait and more uncertainty.
“I just wanted every day to just get the answer. It wasn’t even if the answer was a yeah, I just wanted to know that it was a solid answer, because I think there was something like three appeals within the month,” said O’Brien. That wait dragged on until March 1, when Blackburn issued a club statement conceding that the matter was done: O’Brien’s move was off.
Rooney key to O’Brien’s move
While that clarity may have taken one burden off O’Brien’s shoulders, it left a new one: where does an English player go to get quality playing time once European windows have closed?
According to O’Brien, Forest was prepared for just this sort of problem, and sent him a list of leagues where the window remained open. It wasn’t long before O’Brien found himself focusing on an MLS move as a once-in-a-lifetime sort of opening.
“I’m never gonna get the opportunity to come out here at my age and play football in MLS,” explained O’Brien. “I mean, it was a no-brainer for me.”
Once O’Brien placed MLS atop his list and started hearing back about clubs being interested, what put United ahead of the rest was not exactly a surprise.
“When you look at it, it’s kind of obvious,” said O’Brien with a chuckle. “I’m never gonna get a chance for one of the best midfielders-slash-strikers in history of England to coach me as a football player. If I can’t get better when he’s coaching me, I don’t think I ever will. So it was a no-brainer to come with Wayne Rooney being the manager, he’s only going to improve me.”
Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
O’Brien didn’t know exactly what life would be like in MLS, but said he’s been “pleasantly surprised” with things at both United and on a league level. The system Rooney is playing is familiar, and according to O’Brien the standard of play is equivalent to what he’s experienced in the Championship. Speaking to reporters at Audi Field just minutes after his first taste of the league, O’Brien called a 2-0 loss to the Columbus Crew “probably one of the toughest [games] that I’ll have all season.”
O’Brien argued that English perceptions of MLS are down to the time difference preventing more people from staying up to actually see the league on a regular basis.
“Week-in, week-out, it’s not Premier League standard. You’re not just gonna go to another league that’s gonna be as good as that,” said O’Brien. “The quality of the league is a lot better than what English people think, because they don’t get to watch it. It’s late and no one’s gonna stay up till [12:30, 1:30] to watch.”
The quality that saw Forest giving him immediate starts in the Premier League has been obvious in MLS, where O’Brien has hit the ground running in the heart of United’s midfield. He notched his first goal over the weekend as D.C. broke a six-game winless skid with a 1-0 win at CF Montréal. It’s early days, but he has already drawn praise from fans looking for something to get excited about following a miserable 2022 season.
Off the field, there have been pluses and minuses. The urgency to get back on the field meant that once his move to D.C. materialized, things happened so quickly that he didn’t have time to consider what comes with a trans-Atlantic move.
“When you’re back in England, all that you can think about is ‘I’ve got to go play football, I’ve got to go play football. No matter where, I’ve got to go play football,'” said O’Brien. “Then when you get here, you realize that you’ve just left everything back home. I’ve left my fiancée back home, I’ve left my family, my dogs, everything. I just got up and left in one day, because it was like, ‘Here’s your flight. You can go now, you’re gonna come over.’ So once you sit down and you’ve had a couple of days, you kind of think, ‘actually I’ve just up and left pretty quick.'”
He misses his dogs Teddy and Nellie, and admitted “the days can be long” once training is over. However, his parents have already visited — O’Brien took them to the White House for what he called a “once-in-a-lifetime experience” — and he said his fiancée was due to arrive on Wednesday.
In the meantime, life in the States has its appeal. O’Brien made sure to go to some Washington Wizards games before their season ended, and he’s enjoying a block of sunny spring days in the region. In a truly rare take on life around the Capital Beltway, he’s even a fan of driving the region.
While O’Brien didn’t close the door to a permanent switch, it seems like an extended stay in the District is unlikely. For one thing, United would have to meet a purchase clause in their loan that in all likelihood would approach eight figures. That kind of fee would make O’Brien a Designated Player, and United has already maxed out its DP allotment with Christian Benteke, Taxi Fountas, and Mateusz Klich.
There’s also the fact that Forest seems to value O’Brien’s prospects at the Premier League level. The man himself said that the entire loan idea, whether to Blackburn, United, or anywhere else, was broached with Forest’s long-term interests in mind.
“For me to progress and to help the club in the long run — because I’m still there for another three years — it’d be best for me to go out on loan, play some football, and come back,” he explained. “I’m just going to take the days as they come and the weeks as they come. Whatever happens in July, happens in July and hopefully I’ll be a better footballer for coming out here.”
When it comes to transfers, every player says they want to just focus on their soccer. After an odyssey to even get back on the field, there are few that mean it more than O’Brien does.
Nottingham’s Forest’s social media team may want this one back
Trolling an opponent on Twitter can be a delightful exercise, riling up opposing fans while giving your own supporters a little extra edge.
But — and this is important — it’s an infinitely better exercise to do after a win, and it’s an especially terrible idea to do it pre-game if you are a last-place team.
That is a lesson that Nottingham Forest’s social media team learned the hard way this weekend.
Prior to Saturday’s match at fellow strugglers Wolves, Forest posted a picture of striker Emmanuel Dennis on the field at Molineux surrounded by wolf cubs with the caption: “playtime.” The post was eventually deleted, but the damage had been done.
After Wolves inevitably won the game 1-0, their social media team was ready to pull the trigger on an incredibly justified response: “playtime’s over.”
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper admitted what everyone already knew to be true: That post perhaps wasn’t the best idea ever.
“I was asked about it in the press conference afterwards but I wasn’t aware of it. Then I was notified about what happened afterwards,” Cooper said.
“It wasn’t a good thing from the club and it wasn’t helpful. But it’s been dealt with. The important thing is about learning from it.”
Forest has now hopefully learned that the time for riling up an opponent is after a victory, not before a game. But with one win in 10 so far this season, the next trolling opportunity for the newly promoted side may not be for a while.
Haaland is making hat tricks just a thing that happens all the time
Erling Haaland is going to make scoring hat tricks boring at this rate.
Manchester City thumped Nottingham Forest 6-0 on Wednesday, with Haaland scoring three times in the first 38 minutes of the game. Haaland even managed to score one with his left foot, one with his right, and the third on a header.
Just four days earlier, Haaland had a hat trick in the second half of a 4-2 win over Crystal Palace. In his Premier League debut earlier this month, he had a brace against West Ham, and he’s now put up nine goals in five league matches since a €60 million move from Borussia Dortmund this summer. That is, per Opta, a new record for goals in a player’s first five Premier League games.
Haaland opened the scoring in the 12th minute, muscling past his marker to stab home a Phil Foden cross following a short corner.
That duo linked up again 10 minutes later after a poor Forest clearance quickly became some typically intricate one-touch passing from Man City to rip the defense open, leaving Haaland to guide a shot into an empty net.
Haaland finished the hat trick in the 38th minute as Man City began to truly show off. João Cancelo scooped a service to the back post with the outside of his foot that Foden headed back across goal to John Stones, who then nodded it to Haaland to head home from about two yards out.
Man City got one goal from Cancelo and two more from Julián Álvarez in the second half, while Pep Guardiola—presumably frustrated when Haaland went several minutes without scoring more goals—pulled the Norwegian in the 69th minute.
