Bournemouth have signed Wales international defender Chris Mepham from Brentford for an undisclosed fee believed to be \u00a312million.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old has agreed a “long-term” contract with the Premier League club after undergoing a medical on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
A versatile defender able to play at centre-back, Mepham has been capped four times by his country and was a long-standing target of Cherries boss Eddie Howe.<\/p>\n
“It’s taken a while to get my signature on the dotted line but it’s been worth the wait,” Mepham told afcbTV.<\/p>\n
“There’s so much to like about this club, not least the manager. Eddie Howe is a fantastic manager and what he’s done here is remarkable, so to be working under him every day is a really exciting prospect.<\/p>\n
“I’m still young and have lots to learn and develop on my game but I can’t wait to get started, to meet everyone and to get out on the training pitch.”<\/p>\n
Mepham appeared 48 times in all competitions for Brentford, having made his debut in January 2017, scoring once in the Sky Bet Championship.<\/p>\n
The centre-back started 22 of the Bees’ 28 league games this season and played in Wales’ Nations League games against the Republic of Ireland and Denmark in September.<\/p>\n
He becomes Bournemouth’s third arrival of the January transfer window following the loan signing of right-back Nathaniel Clyne and the \u00a319million purchase of striker Dominic Solanke.<\/p>\n
Bournemouth boss Howe said: “Chris is a talented, young defender who has been on our radar for some time, so I am delighted he is finally our player.<\/p>\n
“He has shown a huge amount of potential in his time at Brentford and while playing for Wales, and we believe this is the perfect environment to continue his development.<\/p>\n
“Chris is a good defender and comfortable on the ball, and we believe he will be a great addition to the squad here.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bournemouth have signed Wales international defender Chris Mepham from Brentford for an undisclosed fee believed to be \u00a312million. The 21-year-old has agreed a “long-term” contract with the Premier League club after undergoing a medical on Tuesday. A versatile defender able to play at centre-back, Mepham has been capped four times by his country and was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}