Matt Turner Responds to Mauricio Pochettino Challenge With ‘Premier League Exit’ Lined Up | OneFootball

U.S. men’s national team goalkeeper Matt Turner is reportedly set for a move to French outfit Lyon after struggling for playing time in the Premier League.

After losing a battle for regular minutes at Nottingham Forest, Turner spent last season on loan at fellow Premier League side Crystal Palace, where he also assumed the backup role behind Dean Henderson. The Eagles finished 12th while also recording an historic FA Cup win, but Turner was afforded just 360 minutes all year.

The 30-year-old is set to join Lyon in France’s Ligue 1, with the club reportedly reaching a $9 million deal with Nottingham Forest for the American goalkeeper’s services, according to Tom Bogert and Ben Wright of GiveMeSport.

Previously, he also fell short of ample playing opportunities with Arsenal.

While Turner only played four games of club football through the 2024–25 season—three of which were in the FA Cup run—he kept his starting role with the USMNT, so far holding off MLS standouts Patrick Schulte, Matt Freese and Zack Steffen for the No. 1 spot.

Matt Turner (left) remains top of the U.S. goalkeeping pecking order. / IMAGO/Beautiful Sports

With 51 international caps, Turner has not played over 10 games in a club season since the 2023–24 season, when he racked up 19 games across all competitions with Forest. Now he is hoping to put himself in the best possible form for the World Cup, which not only presents a home opportunity but could also be his last chance at the global tournament.

“I think it’s true that [Turner is] not playing, and we were talking with him, and we translate the idea that for the future, in one year’s time, I think he needs to find the way to compete every week,” USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino said in May.

“[The goalkeeping spot] is open now in our mind, it’s open for another player maybe to challenge and maybe to try to give the possibility to play [to] another player.”

Joining the French side, he could take on the starting role, with the club’s current top-choice goalkeeper, 27-year-old Lucas Perri, linked with AC Milan and other prestigious clubs in Europe.

While he would join fellow American Tanner Tessman at Lyon, the opportunity to play a more significant share of matches could give him his first outright starting role since 2021, when he stood out in New England Revolution’s record-setting run to the Supporters’ Shield, on a team that also included Canadian international and Inter Milan loanee Tajon Buchanan.

Turner is one of the few European-based players set to compete for Pochettino’s USMNT at the Concacaf Gold Cup this summer, where they will face Saudi Arabia, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago in the group stage.