I don't feel the need to care whether teams our guys are on make CL etc right now. Not saying I'm against it but it'll be fours until the next WC so they all have time to play musical chairs. Next year go and get playing time and improve.
Forest did draw with Villa 1-1 Spurs did end up losing on the road at Sunderland. It was looking like it could have been a much worse morning for Aaronson and Leeds. Forest were really playing well in parts of that game. [Let's not forget that after they get past this game against ManU tomorrow, Leeds have the easiest run-in of any team in the league. Plus have the FA Cup.] Also....................Chris Richards and Palace win again! 2-1 over Newcastle. They're playing well right now. Chris went 90. Palace now move ABOVE Newcastle in the table. As of this moment we have the four Yanks clubs all in a row in the table. Bournemouth, Fulham, and Palace are in 11-13, fighting for the trophy of best Yank clubs. Leeds in 15. Of course, Palace still has a path to Europe for next year by winning the Conference League. I do wonder a little about interest in Chris Richards in the summer transfer window.
A little disappointing that all of our YAs in the EPL are in the bottom half of the table. On the other hand, if you put any stock in Opta rankings, bottom half of the Premier League now contains some of the top teams in the world: The Best Football Teams in the World: Opta Power Rankings These are all the USMNT players on the first teams of a top 50 club globally according to Opta: 9. Atletico Madrid - Cardoso 18. Bournemouth - Adams 19. Leverkusen - Tillman 21. Milan - Pulisic 25. Crystal Palace - Richards 26. Fulham - Robinson 27. Atalanta - Musah 28. Juventus - McKennie 39. Leeds - Aaronson 40. Monaco - Balogun 41. PSV - Dest, Pepi 42. Villarreal - Freeman 48. Marseille - Weah 49. Lyon - Tessmann Musah and Freeman are both bench players at their clubs, but the rest all start a decent amount when healthy. Most of our potential starters for the World Cup are at a top 50 club. With a couple exceptions. We obviously don't have a keeper at a top team in Europe right now (Freese's NYCFC is ranked just inside the top 200 teams in the world by Opta). And we also don't have any CBs other than Richards on top teams. In fact, all of our other options are on teams ranked lower than the top MLS teams like Inter Miami, LAFC, and Seattle. (McKenzie's Toulouse is 91st, Trusty's Celtic is 153rd, etc.)
Hugs and Cologne hang on for a big result against Werder Bremen, both who were hanging precariously above that relegation playoff spot. Cologne win 3-1 and help their survival chances. Hopefully Cologne survive and make Lund's loan a permanent move.
Akinmboni is also at Bournemouth. #72 Coventry City - Wright #76 Los Angeles FC - Delgado, T. Tillman, Ebobisse, Boyd, Terry, Hollingshead, Carter, Long, Diaz, Nielsen, Tafari
I said USMNT players. Meaning players who have played for the USMNT (or at the very least been called up by them). But also, while Akinmboni is technically listed with the Bournemouth first team, it doesn't look like he's ever made an appearance for them. His only appearances since joining the club over a year ago have come in reserves/U-21 games.
Mark McKenzie got early marching orders for Toulouse, getting a red card right before the half, losing to Lille 4-0 as well. Tanner starts bench for Lyon against Lorient
Assist for Brenden at Old Trafford as the damned United take a 2-0 lead over their gloried namesakes.
The Silly season has'nt even started yet but we have this! 🚨 Fulham are exploring a deal for Bayer Leverkusen midfielder Malik Tillman as they prepare for life without Harry Wilson whose contract expires in the summer.Fulham are considering their options as Wilson is poised to leave at the end of the season as a free agent.Tillman… pic.twitter.com/tFqMgw8KAo— Transfer News Live (@DeadlineDayLive) April 13, 2026
Not quite sure what Harry Wilson leaving or staying has to do with any potential Fulham interest in Tillman, as they don't play the same position, but then this is from the Daily Mail which is a pretty crap source when it comes to transfers.
Also, can we say that for a club record transfer..................Malik Tillman has had a disappointing season for Leverkusen. 6 goals and 1assists in the league. It's not god awful, of course, but he's their club record signing. What is it about his performance this year that would make Fulham sign him?? Let's see how he goes to the end of the season. Maybe as an 8/10, the guy can have more than 1 assist. Its not amongst the worst moves of the year for Yanks Abroad. There are some infinitely better contenders for that. 3 goals and 4 assists in 28 caps for the USMNT. His goals, by the way, were against T&T and Haiti. Against GOOD opposition he's been anonymous too often. We need that to change. Too often Pulisic bears the brunt of our displeasure. We need others to step up, and Tillman is one of them.
MFAA? Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia? Missouri Fine Arts Academy? Massachusetts Facilities Administrators' Association?
It was disappointing, I have no issue saying it. I do think there was a little bit of the Jessie Marsch gets a big opportunity at RBL, but uh oh, RBL sold all their best talent right before he arrived, color to help emphasize what part of the problems were for Tillman this year. He had to adjust to a brand new team in a brand new league, that was really strong in prior years, but sold off a good chunk of talent in the summer of '25, just double checked my work, and yep, they were a net gain of +270 Mill in the transfer window, losing Wirtz, Frimpong and Tah among others, plus their coach left for Real Madrid. So yeah, he left an ideal situation with PSV where they were kicking --- to a Leverkusen team that decided to rebuild/reload in the offseason withe a pile of big sales, so the caliber of team he was moving into was not 2023-2025 BL or whatever. Nowhere near as good a team. Still, doesn't change the fact that he was quite uneven. He went from 21 goal contributions last year in about 2600 minutes to 9 this year in about 2200 minutes. Big jump up in competition and definitely playing for a much worse team in comparison to the league comp, versus what he was dealing with at PSV. On the positive side, while he's drifted, it hasn't been as bad as I initially thought.... First Month: He Grabbed two goals. Second Month: He was largely out injured almost the entire time. 6 week run after injury return is quiet before winter break: just the 1 goal. January: Adds 2 league goal contributions and 2 CL Goals. We're Back!! February: Quiet, 2 starts, and an ankle injury March: Quiet, 2 starts and 1 goal April so far: 3 minutes, and yet a goal?!?! So to my mind anyway, the big negative has been: From October to Winter Break it basically just flat out sucked, he was hurt and he scored 1 goal in 3 months. Other than that, the only other disappointing period was February where he got dinged up and didn't add much of anything. So a good September, a good January, and a good March/April, and a yuck October-December, and February. I was worried a bit that this might be a bit too much for him (I was hoping that he'd move to a more MOR club in the Bundesliga rather than a traditional top 2-4 side), but I think all in all, considering the sell off Leverkusen had, considering he's been hit by the injury bug twice, he's done okay, to a bit below my expectations. The #'s will say it was a solid debut. Reasonable chance he's gonna hit double digit goal contributions in year 1 after all, but I was hoping for a 12 goal, and 16+ goal contributions right now, and he'd have to be mighty productive down the stretch to come close to that, sitting at 9 as he is right now in total goal contributions.
Impact on Tyler Adams. Too bad. With their substantial losses in the last two transfer windows, Iraola has done a masterful job. When the Bilbao job opened up, many thought that his time at Bournemouth was limited. That's his home as he played over 400 games for Bilbao. He's also been linked to other big jobs. We'll see. But bummer for Adams................. Andoni Iraola to leave Bournemouth at the end of the season - ESPN
9 goal contributions in 2,200 minutes is probably a bit below where I pegged him. In particular, the 1 assist seems a big disappointment to me. But it's not that far off overall given the minutes, and when you add in the defense, he's still been good. That said, I think what this should tell us -- as well as his recent play with the US -- is that he's not going to be "the man" really anywhere. As talented as he is, he's mentality-wise, a complementary player who wants to play within the construct of a team. He's very good, and in a really good team, the production is going to be there. But put him on a team that is struggling to score a bit and ask him to take the lead and you're probably going to be disappointed. He's not uncreative in the sense that he absolutely can make some really nice passes and he can get his own goals ... but he's not a guy who really starts a final third play all that much aside from . He's an interplay guy, not a guy that you hand the ball too and tell him to go do something. Which is totally fine. I'm not sure Leverkusen even expected differently internally, even if their fans might've.
Its kind of like Aaronson. When you're signed as the club record transfer, fans expect excellence. Just doing a good job doesn't cut it. Tillman was sold to the fans as a replacement for Wirtz. Reports: Bayer find Wirtz’s replacement, set to fill star’s boots - Yahoo Sports Tillman to Leverkusen: Can USMNT star fill void left by Wirtz? - ESPN Wirtz had 16 goals and 15 assists across all competitions in his last year for Leverkusen. The answer this season has been no. Tillman hasn't filled the void left by Wirtz. He's not quite the same player,, but the fact remains.
When I originally wrote my post, I started with, "No doubt, it was bad, I'm not gonna pretend to argue different." Then I dug into the #'s and it was actually better than I remembered lol, and I had to edit my post. I don't think I disagree w/any of that, I also think he lacks a little bit of that "Darius Acuff," to his game. You can tell when guys just want to murder their opponents athletically and in a sporting sense. I saw a bit of that with Tillman at the Gold Cup, and I've seen more of it in '25 and '26 than I saw in '22-'24, but I'd probably agree that he's in a basketball sense, you're 3rd or 4th guy, not your "guy". That's part of the reason why McKennie staying Good McKennie, Reyna pulling a lazarus act (I know it aint happening, September it will be literally 5 years since the injury that began all this, that's eons for an athlete), and Cavan are so important, as Weston, Gio, and Cavan are all that kind of guy in central midfield, even if Tillman isn't and can make up for it. Cavan is probably not going to be relevant in a tournament sense until Copa America '28, if we're lucky, so it's pretty important that Tillman get it done to the extent he can.
That's not really true, except to the stupidest of fans. Wirtz had 31 goal contributions for an awesome BL team in the Bundesliga that was challenging and sometimes better than Bayern Munich. Tillman's best season in the meh Eredivisie was not as good as an average Wirtz season in a far tougher league facing far tougher production (23 and 20 goal contributions his tw. seasons with PSV). Any fan who thought Tillman could replace a guy when he produced, at best, 2/3's of his production in a vastly inferior league was and is a delusional moron. He was brought in as a stop gap/developmental option they hoped they could sell on for more, simple as that, they were never so stupid as to think he would step right into Wirtz's role on a much worse version of the same team with an inferior coach and reproduce that production. That's absolute nonsense. The Aaronson analogy doesn't work at all beyond maybe theme, and even there it doesn't as Tillman actually produced. 9 Goal Contributions, probably going to hit double digits before the season wraps, a pair of goals in CL. Aaronson opened his account in August with Leeds against Chelsea on a freaky pressing goal off a terrible goalie error, and then slowly but surely completely collapsed in terms of performance and relevance as the season played out. I don't view it as all or most his fault, but it was a total disaster of a transfer and season. Tillman's been a bit subpar, disappointing, Aaronson was a calamity along with the rest of that horrid team and literally nothing went right for him after matchday 1. It's just not the same, beyond disappointing as a sentiment (to some extent for Tillman).