{"id":441060,"date":"2019-05-20T14:13:12","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T18:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=441060"},"modified":"2019-05-20T14:13:12","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T18:13:12","slug":"kevin-berkoe-becomes-first-oxford-united-summer-signing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2019\/05\/20\/kevin-berkoe-becomes-first-oxford-united-summer-signing\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Berkoe Becomes First Oxford United Summer Signing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oufc.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oxford United<\/a> have made their first summer signing as full-back\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.transfermarkt.co.uk\/kevin-berkoe\/leistungsdaten\/spieler\/509156\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Berkoe<\/a> joins the U&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>The 17-year-old, who turns 18 in July, arrives from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wolves.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wolverhampton Wanderers<\/a> having spent two years at the Premier League side but has been released.<\/p>\n<h1>Kevin Berkoe Joins Oxford United<\/h1>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u270d\ufe0f Delighted to announce our first summer signing. Welcome Kevin Berkoe who joins after leaving Wolverhampton Wanderers <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/OUFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#OUFC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WelcomeKevin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#WelcomeKevin<\/a> ? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/lsTEzmtot9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/lsTEzmtot9<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Oxford United FC (@OUFCOfficial) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OUFCOfficial\/status\/1130458463505723392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 20, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Oxford Make First Summer Signing<\/h2>\n<p>Oxford United manager\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.transfermarkt.co.uk\/karl-robinson\/profil\/trainer\/13985\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Karl Robinson<\/a>\u00a0insisted he wanted to make early strides in the <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/TmQRUoYsIU?amp=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">transfer market<\/a> this summer, and he hasn&#8217;t hung around.<\/p>\n<p>The defender, who has featured more at left back, can also play on the right side of defence but has also featured on the left side of midfield.<\/p>\n<p>Berkoe arrives from Wolves, having started his career at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chelseafc.com\/en\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chelsea<\/a>&#8216;s youth academy. It is believed that Robinson will feature the youngster in the U23 side, with a chance to introduce him slowly into the first team.<\/p>\n<p>U\u2019s boss Karl Robinson told the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfordmail.co.uk\/sport\/oxfordunited\/usnews\/17651577.oxford-united-sign-kevin-berkoe-after-leaving-wolverhampton-wanderers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oxford Mail:<\/a> \u201cLook at his pedigree and you can see he has a lot of ability and now he has to chance to push on and force his way in to the first team here.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is quick, technically very good and I know there were a number of clubs looking at him so we are really happy that he sees his future at Oxford.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/01086c66\/Josh-Ruffels\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Josh Ruffels<\/a> ahead of him and Michael Elechi coming through as well, so we have good competition in that position which is really encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"app\" class=\"eplayer\">\n<div class=\"eplayer-content\">\n<div class=\"controls-wrapper controls-wrapper--not-clickable\" role=\"presentation\">\n<div class=\"controls-wrapper__ui-mask\" role=\"presentation\">It was known that League One play-off finalists\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/soccersouls.com\/why-sunderland-need-to-make-a-move-for-kevin-berkoe\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sunderland<\/a> had shown an interest in the full back, giving him a trial in March.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div role=\"presentation\"><\/div>\n<div role=\"presentation\">However, it was Oxford that impressed Berkoe when his Wolves side faced the U&#8217;s in the Premier League Cup.<\/div>\n<div role=\"presentation\"><\/div>\n<p>He said: \u201cThey were very impressive, so now I want to try and force my way into the first team here because it\u2019s a club that gives youngsters that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Berkoe also made 12 appearances for Wolves this season in the U18 Premier League, assisting one goal.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"P-xRwv2lRCFOOvPVnJAv1A\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1096704838\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'P-xRwv2lRCFOOvPVnJAv1A',sig:'F4fiUtVb_IermgwhuQdPs3dtUto8xXtee-vKyTtI34c=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1096704838',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oxford United have made their first summer signing as full-back\u00a0Kevin Berkoe joins the U&#8217;s. The 17-year-old, who turns 18 in July, arrives from Wolverhampton Wanderers having spent two years at the Premier League side but has been released. Kevin Berkoe Joins Oxford United &nbsp; \u270d\ufe0f Delighted to announce our first summer signing. Welcome Kevin Berkoe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":441184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,34,30,28],"tags":[166,3752,188,43,243,136],"class_list":["post-441060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-league12","category-news","category-transfers","tag-karl-robinson","tag-kevin-berkoe","tag-league-one","tag-news","tag-oxford-united","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Nat Goodlad, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}