KING SIGNS FOR EVERTON
Everton have completed the signing of Joshua King from Bournemouth for a nominal fee until the end of 2020/21. Forward King scored 53 goals in 184 matches for the south coast team after joining from Blackburn Rovers prior to Bournemouth’s first Premier League season in 2015/16.
King’s Premier League football has been exclusively played with Bournemouth and his 161 appearances in the competition have produced 48 goals.
He scores his international goals at a rate of one every three games, with 17 strikes in 51 appearances for Norway – King netted home and away against Spain in qualifying matches for the 2020 European Championship.
King was capped at every level, bar Under-17, from Under-15 to Under-21 before a senior debut, aged 20, in September 2012.
The player, who turned 29 last month, was instrumental to Bournemouth surviving in the Premier League for four straight seasons.
In his second campaign – 2016/17 – when Bournemouth upset the established order to finish ninth, King struck twice in a 6-3 defeat at Goodison Park to prompt a prolific scoring run.
King netted 12 times in 14 games to spearhead the Cherries’ surge to their best league placing.
Capable of operating on either flank, in addition to his favoured centre-forward position, King has 19 Premier League assists.
He originally came to England aged 16, joining Manchester United from the academy at Valarenga in home city Oslo.
King’s two senior United appearances – both off the bench – were separated by more than three years.
His debut for the Old Trafford side came in a League Cup tie against Wolverhampton Wanderers in September 2009, when King was 17 and playing regularly for the club’s Under-18s.
He had three months on loan in the Championship with Preston North End the following season, returning to win Premier League North as a key figure for United’s reserve team.
A temporary spell with Borussia Monchengladbach in Germany’s Bundesliga at the outset of 2011/12 was prematurely ended by an adductor problem.
King recovered in time to spend the second half of that season with Hull City, playing 18 games in the Championship.
His second outing for United was in a Champions League match at Galatasaray, two days before leaving for Blackburn on loan in November 2012.
King’s transfer to Ewood Park was converted into a permanent arrangement two months later.
He had two-and-a-half years with the Championship team, gaining wider recognition after scoring a hat-trick in a 4-1 FA Cup fifth-round victory over Premier League Stoke City in February 2015.
King got his Premier League move three months later and made his top-flight debut against Aston Villa on the opening day of 2015/16.
He scored his first goal in the division in a 2-2 draw at Swansea City, following up with the decisive strike in a 2-1 victory over old club United for a first goal at Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium.
King’s three goals this term were all scored in FA Cup matches, the latest deciding Bournemouth’s fourth-round tie with Crawley Town last week.
He struck five times in nine group matches as Norway reached the 2020 European Championship qualifying play-off stage but missed out on the tournament after an extra-time defeat to Serbia.
https://www.evertonfc.com/news/2008105/king-signs-for-everton
