Will Ream be a Dream? Now with added Pitch Shirt Grin....

[Salford Trotter]

Thanks for that, I for one know nothing about him so this is all useful, good & bad.

As well as being left footed, does he prefer a particular side of the two centre back slots?

By the way, "Sophomore slump" = "Second season syndrome" over here

I haven't seen him as a right CB ever. I've always seen him on the left with NY and the national team. To be fair though, when needed his right foot is serviceable, he's not entirely one-footed. He is definitely not a left fullback either. Again no speed what-so-ever haha

cheers! that's very useful - and good to hear!

I for one am glad to hear we are not getting another hoof it merchant - some have been noting on here that we would miss Cahill's distribution - and ability to carry the ball out - if Ream can do that (in the pressure keg of the Barclays Premier League) - then that's a real positive!

we've had him on trial - so we've obviously seem something in him...

He'll definitely need some time to adapt to the PL but if you're patient he'll definitely improve. The only thing I'm worried about is that Coyle gets sacked after this transfer goes through (relegation battle, no offense), and your new manager doesn't like him and he just rots away on the bench. He needs playing time to get better (also to help out the national team. Our centerbacks are basically on the wrong side of 30 right now).

Two things I forgot to add which you might have already figured out, is he is very, very, very composed on the ball. He does not rush things when needed, which drastically improves his distribution. I mean he's no Xavi of the backline, but I think you all will be presently surprised just how smart, for an American, he is on the ball and what he does with it. The second would be is that he's average in the air. He's no world beater up there, but makes the necessary defensive headers when needed.

Cheers yank dude

Sounds ok...nervous about his supposed lack of pace and his lack of experience, natch.

Still the work permit to sort - how long will that take?

His lack of experience is very annoying, I admit. The whole college thing is just how we Americans unfortunately do it, when it comes to soccer. However teams have started to sign more and more of their academy players. On our team, we have 19yo Juan Agudelo, the first player to play AND score for the national team to have come from an MLS' team academy. Liverpool are rumored to bid $4M for him, after he did a similiar "trial" with them as Ream with you and West Brom. I personally believe, if he was 21 with 2 seasons as a professional under a belt, he could easily be converted into a DM and be up there with Owen Hargreaves (in his prime) with the way he can read the game.

The work permit thing has been discussed at length on our boards about this transfer. We basically just dismissed this transfer because we can't possibly see how he will get a work permit. But now that he's traveling to England, and the British press basically saying the deal is done, Bolton must feel they have a good case on appeal.

Right now Robbie Findley, an American striker for Nottingham Forest, somehow got a work permit having played no where near the amount of games required for the US. We think it was because he was on our World Cup roster. Ream was on our Gold Cup roster this past summer (the North American version of your Euro's) and was the starter for the first 2 games (I believe) before he had a shocker of a bad game and was dropped for the rest of the tournament.

Another case would be that apparently if you have a college degree, which Ream has from St. Louis University, that would help a work permit appeal since he could contribute to the British society with a college degree or some crap like that lol. I don't know, you all probably know better than we do. An example of this would be Matt Pickens a GK for the Colorado Rapids who basically only sniffed the US national team with training stints, don't think he ever made the 18 for any of our matches and got a work permit to play for QPR in 2008, all because he has a college degree. So that has to be used as precedence in the appeal I would assume

thanks for the comprehensive and interesting insight, are there any jewels of US based players (other than the ones you've mentioned) that Owen should be casting his eye over?

[Prufrock]

Worries me, massively. Comfortable on the ball, brilliant, but at the expense of being able defend, and perhaps, given our other options, run? Not convinced. Sounds like American Campo to me, which brilliant as he was, would defo not be what we needed at centre half right now. Plus, time to adapt? If only. Onuoha please!

[Hutskizzle]

thanks for the comprehensive and interesting insight, are there any jewels of US based players (other than the ones you've mentioned) that Owen should be casting his eye over?

Depends on where you need the help. Check out our current national team roster on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... occer_team. These are players that play in MLS or Scandinavian teams (or a bench warmer in the 2.Bundesliga ), with a spring-summer-fall schedule that aren't first team/A team players that Klinnsman wants a better look at. If they have less than 20 caps, they'll probably be unknown outside of USMNT fans like me. Just let me know what position and I'll give you a good list. Klinnsman really doesn't rate MLS as well as he should so he's trying to get all of "his players" to Europe ASAP. So expect more and more Americans evading the PL/Championship.

Worries me, massively. Comfortable on the ball, brilliant, but at the expense of being able defend, and perhaps, given our other options, run? Not convinced. Sounds like American Campo to me, which brilliant as he was, would defo not be what we needed at centre half right now. Plus, time to adapt? If only. Onuoha please!

You all here were probably saying "Who?" when Coyle brought in Holden (who btw unless he has US jersey on, I detest). I'm just not going to sit here and type out how awesome Tim Ream is. Every player has his pros and cons. He is what he is lol

[a1]

how the frig can someone hate stuart holden ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KLTrjr60Ew" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

its like not believing tim tebow is jesus

[Hutskizzle]

Oh man, when he was with the Dynamo, he was the type of player that would get in a players face no matter what the problem is. If something unrelated to him was happening to the other corner of the pitch, he would run all the way across the field and start pushing and shoving and getting in players faces like the douchebag he is

I remember, one game like it was yesterday when the dynamo came to new york in early summer in 2009. i believe he was playing LW that game and our RB at the time, carlos johnson was holding him down. the second he got a chance in the 2nd half, he came joey barton-late on johnson's ankle and instantly broke it. then got pissy with our players like "it was a clean tackle, i didn't do anything wrong". the ref missed it, but it was clearly a straight red. then a few minutes later in retaliation, our CM jorge rojas, got sent off going late on him. then when jorge wouldn't leave the field, holden got up like nothing was the problem and completely starting pushing and shoving, getting in his face blah blah blah. holden got nothing for putting his hands on jorge's neck. it was a complete joke

if you know about the sunderland incident, you know his mouth cashes a lot of checks his body can't take. those nigel de jong and jonny evans tackles was karma catching up with him. i only felt bad bc i knew he'd miss the World Cup/Gold Cup the following summers. he's a bully, at least he was in MLS with houston

but don't get me wrong, as soon as he has the US kit on, i'll go red in the face rooting for him haha

[a1]

but, he scored a last minute winner against blackburn. about 4 seconds after they had equalized.

was unbelievable.

[Sponge]

Oh man, when he was with the Dynamo, he was the type of player that would get in a players face no matter what the problem is. If something unrelated to him was happening to the other corner of the pitch, he would run all the way across the field and start pushing and shoving and getting in players faces like the douchebag he is

I remember, one game like it was yesterday when the dynamo came to new york in early summer in 2009. i believe he was playing LW that game and our RB at the time, carlos johnson was holding him down. the second he got a chance in the 2nd half, he came joey barton-late on johnson's ankle and instantly broke it. then got pissy with our players like "it was a clean tackle, i didn't do anything wrong". the ref missed it, but it was clearly a straight red. then a few minutes later in retaliation, our CM jorge rojas, got sent off going late on him. then when jorge wouldn't leave the field, holden got up like nothing was the problem and completely starting pushing and shoving, getting in his face blah blah blah. holden got nothing for putting his hands on jorge's neck. it was a complete joke

if you know about the sunderland incident, you know his mouth cashes a lot of checks his body can't take. those nigel de jong and jonny evans tackles was karma catching up with him. i only felt bad bc i knew he'd miss the World Cup/Gold Cup the following summers. he's a bully, at least he was in MLS with houston

but don't get me wrong, as soon as he has the US kit on, i'll go red in the face rooting for him haha

Funny, I always had him down as Mr Nice Guy.

[ohjimmyjimmy]

I vote that slagging off stewie holden be a banning offence..!

[Chrisfu]

Oh man, when he was with the Dynamo, he was the type of player that would get in a players face no matter what the problem is. If something unrelated to him was happening to the other corner of the pitch, he would run all the way across the field and start pushing and shoving and getting in players faces like the douchebag he is

I remember, one game like it was yesterday when the dynamo came to new york in early summer in 2009. i believe he was playing LW that game and our RB at the time, carlos johnson was holding him down. the second he got a chance in the 2nd half, he came joey barton-late on johnson's ankle and instantly broke it. then got pissy with our players like "it was a clean tackle, i didn't do anything wrong". the ref missed it, but it was clearly a straight red. then a few minutes later in retaliation, our CM jorge rojas, got sent off going late on him. then when jorge wouldn't leave the field, holden got up like nothing was the problem and completely starting pushing and shoving, getting in his face blah blah blah. holden got nothing for putting his hands on jorge's neck. it was a complete joke

if you know about the sunderland incident, you know his mouth cashes a lot of checks his body can't take. those nigel de jong and jonny evans tackles was karma catching up with him. i only felt bad bc i knew he'd miss the World Cup/Gold Cup the following summers. he's a bully, at least he was in MLS with houston

but don't get me wrong, as soon as he has the US kit on, i'll go red in the face rooting for him haha

Nice to have a different perspective on Holden. I admit, I always wondered about the incident at Sunderland. I mean it's not like that at the time, he'd have been instantly recognisable in those parts as he wasn't a well-known player, so I always imagined it was something that he got himself into, as opposed to him being targeted by an angry fan/opposing fan.

Would you say that his issue at the time was his lack of maturity, and that it seems that he appears to have mellowed with age? He definitely seems to me to be clean and mellow now, and can't remember him making a particularly dirty tackle.

[elfil76]

Worries me, massively. Comfortable on the ball, brilliant, but at the expense of being able defend, and perhaps, given our other options, run? Not convinced. Sounds like American Campo to me, which brilliant as he was, would defo not be what we needed at centre half right now. Plus, time to adapt? If only. Onuoha please!

somehow i have some reservation close to what Pru wrote. Nevertheless GC never had the "pace" but he had experience which from the look of it, we need to provide for Ream. Actually, wouldn't mind it a bit if we are in the same position as last year - something like Wheater's deal (hmm, we seems to like buying CB in Jan). With our current situation, someone with Onuoha experience might be more worth/practical to put the money on as the luxury of giving players chance to do their "burn in" period is very short.

Anyway, deal seems to go ahead anyway. Good thing the missus is also a soccer player, hence might give him hell too for bad performance on and off pitch.
http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/wa ... n_the_bag/

[ohjimmyjimmy]

Gulp.

[ohjimmyjimmy]

Dammm...he's currently on 40 grand a year, a year !

[thebish]

Worries me, massively. Comfortable on the ball, brilliant, but at the expense of being able defend, and perhaps, given our other options, run? Not convinced. Sounds like American Campo to me, which brilliant as he was, would defo not be what we needed at centre half right now. Plus, time to adapt? If only. Onuoha please!

where did you get that bit from??

[n035209]

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/wa ... n_the_bag/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

least the Yanks have got something right with there soccer setup, Ream is on £40000 pound per year wages according to the ben

No wonder moving to the premiership is a dream move, if he earns 10k a week at bolton, he will be getting a pay rise of 1200%

[Gary the Enfield]

If you want to welcome him with open arms, why don't we chip together and buy him something from his wedding list?

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j& ... DphV1whscQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[thebish]

If you want to welcome him with open arms, why don't we chip together and buy him something from his wedding list?

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j& ... DphV1whscQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

none of those electrical goods will be any use over here!!!

[Hutskizzle]

Would you say that his issue at the time was his lack of maturity, and that it seems that he appears to have mellowed with age? He definitely seems to me to be clean and mellow now, and can't remember him making a particularly dirty tackle.

seems like it now, so hopefully he is. im starting to like him more, but he's still a prick in my book haha

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/wa ... n_the_bag/

least the Yanks have got something right with there soccer setup, Ream is on £40000 pound per year wages according to the ben

No wonder moving to the premiership is a dream move, if he earns 10k a week at bolton, he will be getting a pay rise of 1200%

yup, that's what every "unknown" player coming from college makes with MLS. it's the basic contract offered. it's a 2 year contract with an additional 2 year club option for the player. Ream was definitely an unknown coming out of college to say the least.

i actually believe he made £26000 pound per year (i did the conversion) in 2010 with us, but because of a new agreement with the MLS player's union and MLS, players on that standard contract get a % increase every year. we actually had 5 players make only £21000 pound per year with us last season!

holden was on that same type of contract with houston. after it was up, he went on a free to Bolton. our management didn't want that to happen with ream, which is why we're selling him now. if you tried buying him at the end of last season you would have to bid somewhere in the £9-10.5M range. Arsenal was believed to have bid somewhere in the £2M range which is why it was rejected. Not this time though! it's funny now, since holden's move to Bolton has been so successful and after what he did (waited out his contract so he could leave on a free) it's now referred to as "pulling a Holden" here in the states. as a manager, you don't want your players "pulling a Holden" so you sell them while they're hot instead of not getting anything in return for them!

[thebish]

it's funny now, since holden's move to Bolton has been so successful and after what he did (waited out his contract so he could leave on a free) it's now referred to as "pulling a Holden" here in the states. as a manager, you don't want your players "pulling a Holden" so you sell them while they're hot instead of not getting anything in return for them!

what comes around goes around!!! we can't be too upset that mandy pulled a Holden on us!!

[elfil76]

Gc almost pulled a holden, our ozzie mate might take that differently

[thebish]

If you want to welcome him with open arms, why don't we chip together and buy him something from his wedding list?

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j& ... DphV1whscQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

hahaah - someone has already bought him the The Beatles Pint Glass Set of 4 - Assorted!!!