{"id":135,"date":"2019-01-01T00:03:25","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T00:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bournemouthtoday.com\/?p=35"},"modified":"2019-01-01T00:03:25","modified_gmt":"2019-01-01T00:03:25","slug":"chris-mepham-signs-for-afc-bournemouth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.bournemouthone.com\/test\/chris-mepham-signs-for-afc-bournemouth\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Mepham signs for AFC Bournemouth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bournemouth has completed the signing of Brentford defender Chris Mepham for \u00a312m on long-term contract.<\/p>\n

The Cherries were close to signing the 21 year old Wales international last week but the news has been confirmed today. He joined Brentford in January 2017.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Howe revealed the club had tracked the 21-year-old Wales international \u201cfor a long time\u201d and said he hoped Mepham would \u201cmaximise his potential\u201d at Vitality Stadium.<\/p>\n

In an interview with afcbTV, Howe said: “Chris is very comfortable on the ball, composed in possession, he makes a lot of good decisions, has good defensive instincts and a good mentality.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re very excited about the opportunity to work with him. He\u2019s a fantastic age with a lot of potential to be an outstanding player for us. We\u2019re looking forward to developing and nurturing that potential, giving him the platform to progress his career here. There\u2019s so much to like about Chris and, for that reason, we\u2019ve taken a great interest in his career to this point.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s very difficult to find defenders who can do everything and we\u2019re looking for those qualities in the players we bring in. The ability to play, to defend, to be athletic and to have a good attitude \u2013 getting all those things is incredibly difficult.<\/p>\n

“But now we have the chance to work with Chris, it is about enhancing those attributes and working with him on a daily basis to maximise his potential.”<\/p>\n

Mepham, who made 48 competitive appearances for the Bees, including 43 in the Championship, trained on Wednesday with his new team-mates for the first time.<\/p>\n

Howe added: “It\u2019s very difficult to make predictions on how quickly people bed in to new surroundings, with new teammates and in a new league.<\/p>\n

“I believe he has the ability to play immediately but he has had a couple of injuries recently so, although he is fit, we will need to manage him carefully in this new environment. But I\u2019m sure he will be very popular with his new teammates and will fit straight in. He is also very much in keeping with the profile of the players we are looking at. Reducing the average age of our squad was something we prioritised around 18 months ago and it is very important that the squad is well balanced.<\/p>\n

“I believe we have that balance back in terms of the age of the squad and the future looks very bright. We have a nice mix of centre-backs now, with Steve Cook and Nathan Ake performing very well.<\/p>\n

“Cookie is an experienced player at this level and Nathan is developing that experience all the time. Behind them there is a really good balance, with a right and left-footer in Chris and Jack Simpson and it is great competition in an important position.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bournemouth has completed the signing of Brentford defender Chris Mepham for \u00a312m on long-term contract. The Cherries were close to signing the 21 year old Wales international last week but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bournemouth","tag-news","tag-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.bournemouthone.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.bournemouthone.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.bournemouthone.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.bournemouthone.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.bournemouthone.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.bournemouthone.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.bournemouthone.com\/test\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.bournemouthone.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.bournemouthone.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.bournemouthone.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}