{"id":399332,"date":"2026-01-08T08:16:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399332\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T08:16:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:16:06","slug":"bournemouths-semenyo-earns-fairytale-ending-before-man-city-transfer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399332\/","title":{"rendered":"Bournemouth’s Semenyo earns ‘fairytale ending’ before Man City transfer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bournemouth<\/a> manager Andoni Iraola all but confirmed Antoine Semenyo<\/a>‘s impending transfer to Manchester City<\/a>, as he hailed the winger’s “fairytale ending” by scoring a late winner against Tottenham Hotspur<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Sources have told ESPN that Semenyo will undergo a medical with Man City later this week after indicating they will trigger the \u00a365 million [$88m] release clause in his contract.<\/p>\n

– Iraola: Man City-target Semenyo could play last game Wednesday<\/a>
– Premier League January transfers: All confirmed ins, outs for every club<\/a><\/p>\n

The Ghana<\/a> international, who was celebrating his 26th birthday, scored in the fifth minute of stoppage time to hand Bournemouth a 3-2 win<\/a>. He was then given a standing ovation and serenaded by home supporters at the Vitality Stadium when he was substituted moments later.<\/p>\n

“It’s a fairytale ending,” Iraola told the BBC. “Football sometimes gives you something back if you’re really committed. He’s one of the best players I’ve ever coached.”<\/p>\n

Antoine Semenyo is set to join Manchester City from Bournemouth.\u00a0Dan Mullan\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Iraola paid special tribute to Semenyo for continuing to perform at a high level for Bournemouth amid talks with City.<\/p>\n

“It’s not easy to do what he has done because a lot of the players would have acted differently,” he told a news conference.<\/p>\n

“He’s never found excuses. He was ready to give whatever we needed.<\/p>\n

“We’ve pushed a lot to keep him until the last second here and it’s fair he leaves with the feeling he has had at the end: with the substitution, with the reception of the supporters. He has earned all this.<\/p>\n

“I’m very happy for him because he’s a top player but especially a top person.”<\/p>\n

Man City manager Pep Guardiola, however, again refused to be drawn on the transfer following his team’s disappointing 1-1 draw<\/a> with Brighton on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know. I don’t know what is going to happen in the transfer window,” he said.<\/p>\n

PA and ESPN’s Rob Dawson contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola all but confirmed Antoine Semenyo‘s impending transfer to Manchester City, as he hailed the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-399332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}