Drogheda United have signed American wing-back Jason Bucknor ahead of the new SSE Airtricity Men’s Premier Division season.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old signed with the LA Galaxy for the 2025 season after being selected 20th overall in the first round of the MLS SuperDraft out of the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n
Bucknor made 27 appearances across all competitions for MLS Next Pro League side Ventura County, the affiliate club of LA Galaxy, in 2025.<\/p>\n
During his time with the University of Michigan, Bucknor was named to the Big Ten All-Freshman Team in 2021 and was selected to the Big Ten All-Tournament team twice while helping Michigan qualify for the NCAA tournament in 2024.<\/p>\n
Bucknor is a product of the Inter Miami Academy, having played 13 matches for Inter Miami\/Fort Lauderdale CF in USL League One.<\/p>\n
United manager Kevin Doherty feels Bucknor will be a major addition to his squad:<\/p>\n
“When I first watched Jason, I got really excited. He\u2019s a strong attacking option for us on both sides, whilst also being excellent defensively.<\/p>\n
“He is predominantly a right sided player but has played a lot of games on the left and can play in a number of different roles.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s a player I think the supporters should be excited about. He\u2019s strong physically, has excellent athletic ability, and contributes to goals.<\/p>\n
“We had a number of conversations with him before joining us, and I\u2019m really looking forward to having him join the group.”<\/p>\n
Bucknor has targeted trophies at Sullivan & Lambe Park.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s an honour to sign with Drogheda United, and I can\u2019t wait to integrate with the team.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m excited to bring joy to the fans with my style of play and to help win many games as we fight for trophies together.”<\/p>\n
It’s the second move Drogheda have made in the US market after defender Leo Burney joined on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Burney had a similar development to Bucknor, joining Seattle Sounders for the 2025 season and making 19 appearances in all competitions for MLS Next Pro side Tacoma Defiance.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere Northern Ireland Under-21 international Eoin Kenny has opted to stay with Dundalk for their return to the Premier Division.<\/p>\n
Kenny, son of former Republic of Ireland and current St Patrick\u2019s Athletic boss Stephen, has been linked with a move to the UK.<\/p>\n
Despite just recently turning 20, the striker already has 70 appearances and scored 14 goal, including 10 in the First Division last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drogheda United have signed American wing-back Jason Bucknor ahead of the new SSE Airtricity Men’s Premier Division season.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-241103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}