If you can't remember the last time you thought about Eddie Johnson, the speedy striker who showed so much promise as an MLS player before heading off to England just a year and a half ago, you're probably not alone. Johnson has seemingly dropped off of the National Team radar since leaving MLS, after getting lost in the shuffle of a manager change at Fulham and spending a year on loan at Championship side Cardiff City. With the recent emergence of Jozy Altidore and Charlie Davies, Eddie is the forgotten man, a young player who has failed to stay on an upward trending career path, and is therefore left out of most USMNT conversations.
But Eddie is only twenty-five, and there remains hope that he can convert his considerable potential into something more substantial. If he can, he just might find himself in the mix for the World Cup squad next year. A solid season, hopefully full of goals, could return his name to the list of strikers Bob Bradley considers for national team duty.
Johnson is with Fulham again, for the time being, as they begin their Europa League campaign tonight in Lithuania; there's some hope that he's starting to come around a bit, and HammyEnd.com's Dan Crawford has been kind enough to give MFUSA his perspective:
If you mentioned at the start of the summer that Eddie Johnson might play a big part in Fulham’s season, you would have got some bemused looks (at best) from most Whites fans. The American striker didn’t make the best of first impressions when he joined us in January 2008. He looked nervy and ill-at-ease during a testing debut against West Ham, missing a glorious chance that could have put Fulham back in the game.
To be fair to the young man, his start with Fulham suffered from the fact that he was a transfer earmarked by Lawrie Sanchez, who had been sacked by the time Johnson had arrived. Roy Hodgson had little choice but to give the new forward his chance immediately in the heat of a real relegation battle; but Johnson was always going to struggle in comparison to the likes of Brian McBride, one of the most highly-regarded players in recent times at Craven Cottage and probably the finest ambassador for the game in America, and Clint Dempsey, now fast emerging as a fans favourite.
By the end of a six game spell in the Fulham side, Johnson had certainly improved. He might have scored at Blackburn as the Whites salvaged a vital point in the run-in and it is no exaggeration to say that he was excellent as McBride headed a massive winner against Everton. His chances were always going to be limited once Hodgson overhauled his squad after Fulham successfully avoided relegation, with two big-money strikers arriving in the shape of Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora.
Johnson’s education in English football continued in Wales, oddly enough, with Cardiff City. He initially struggled to adapt to the physical nature of the game in the Championship, but had earned the respect of a notoriously demanding home support at Ninian Park by the end of a difficult loan spell. He scored two goals towards the end of his time with Cardiff and headed back to Fulham in good heart.
His chances of making an impact during this campaign with the Whites have increased largely because there doubts over whether Zamora can be considered an automatic selection, having endured a disappointing season in front of goal last term. The former West Ham striker managed just four goals – two of them coming against lower-league opposition in the FA Cup – and was close to joining Hull City earlier this month. With Diomansy Kamara, another forward, reportedly edging closer to the exit door, Johnson did his cause no harm with a string of fine pre-season performances.
Perhaps motivated by the fact that he would have to up his game in order to make Bob Bradley’s squad for the World Cup in South Africa next summer, Johnson took his opportunity with both feet on Fulham’s pre-season tour of Australia. He came off the bench to good effect against Perth Glory, making two goals for Erik Nevland. What was most evident in those early pre-season matches was that his first touch and awareness of what was around him had improved markedly since his first few games in a Fulham shirt.
Johnson notched his first goal of pre-season for Fulham’s reserves against Aldershot last week. He has travelled with the squad for this evening’s Europa League qualifier against FK Vetra – a measure of how highly Hodgson must rate his improvement. Fulham have offered several Championship clubs the option of taking him on loan to aid his development and give him a chance of first-team football, but I believe some of his more trenchant critics might have written Eddie off a little too early.
It's obviously a crucial season for Johnson, not matter where he ends up, and while USMNT fans won't be putting as much hope into him as they did before, we should still keep an eye on him.
