Bournemouth winger Antoine Semenyo has been one of the standout players of the Premier League season so far after coming close to sealing a move away in the summer
Antoine Semenyo is destined to leave Bournemouth for one of the Premier League’s big guns with a transfer just a “matter of time”.
The Bournemouth winger is one of the hottest properties in the top flight this season with six goals and three assists in seven matches following his brace in Friday’s 3-1 win over Fulham. Only Erling Haaland has found the net more times than the 25-year-old, who rejected a move elsewhere in the summer despite holding talks with another Premier League club.
Semenyo admitted he “didn’t feel wanted” enough to leave the Vitality Stadium and signed a new five-year contract while Bournemouth lost several other big-name players to the likes of Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain. But according to his personal skills coach, Saul Isaksson-Hurst, Semenyo will soon be lighting up the Champions League to continue his meteoric rise from the sixth tier of English football.
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“He’s unbelievable,” Isaksson-Hurst told Mirror Sport. “He’s a Champions League player and was unlucky not to get a move in the summer, but it’s a matter of time before he goes to a big club. There was interest. He’s one of the most electric players in the Premier League at the moment. So there’s no ceiling.
“If you can dominate the Premier League you can dominate any league. He could play for any of the big clubs and make an impact.” Semenyo approached Isaksson-Hurst at the start of the summer and first worked with the specialist technical coach while holidaying in the south of France before intense sessions in London ahead of pre-season.
“I said to him straight away – ‘You should be playing Champions League football’,” Isaksson-Hurst recalled. “That’s got to be the initial target.
“How’s he going to do that? You’ve got to be one of the best players at Bournemouth and help them have a really successful season and ideally be one of the highest for goals and assists in your team and in the league which will give you the platform to do that. It’s a natural progression.”
Semenyo has come a long way since joining Bristol City’s academy at 17 after impressing whilst playing against them for his local college side, having already faced several rejections from trials with Premier League clubs. Loan spells in National League South with Bath City, League Two with Newport County and League One with Sunderland followed, before his breakthrough at Ashton Gate which eventually brought Bournemouth calling.
“That resilience to work hard. That’s one of the reasons he contacted me,” Isaksson-Hurst said. “He understands that he needs to keep going, that he hasn’t arrived. He wants to be the best player he can be, to keep working on his craft. A lot of footballers approach me but very few are willing to do this stuff regularly and go the extra mile.”
Antoine Semenyo trains with personal skills coach Saul Isaksson-Hurst
It’s almost hard to believe Semenyo was overlooked by many of the clubs he’s now putting to the sword. “It’s difficult, a bit like [Eberechi] Eze, everyone has got a different journey and progresses differently,” Isaksson-Hurst added. “Maybe he just wasn’t ready then.”
Isaksson-Hurst spent 10 years coaching in the academy system at Tottenham and Chelsea before setting up his own player performance app, My Personal Football Coach. He describes himself as an ‘individual skill development specialist’ and has worked with Arsenal’s Noni Madueke and ex-Gunners striker Folarin Balogun, as well as full-back Max Aarons, who is on loan at Rangers from Bournemouth.
“It’s pretty unprecedented to not have any academy football and work your way up,” he said of Semenyo. “People who support my sessions come up to me and say, ‘Wow, this guy is box office.’
“He’s so dynamic and explosive with the ball, that’s the difference. He can drive with the ball, strike with both feet. He has an unorthodox shooting technique where he almost ‘knuckleballs’ it – I’ve never seen someone who can do that with both feet with such consistency, particularly someone who hasn’t played academy football. It’s something he’s developed himself.”