AFC Bournemouth
In January 2019, a 21-year-old Chris Mepham came on for his Cherries debut as the youngest player on the pitch against Chelsea.
Just over two-and-a-half years later and the same player was the elder statesman in a backline that also included Zeno Ibsen Rossi (20), Jordan Zemura (21), Mark Travers (22) and Lloyd Kelly (22).
Despite his relative youth in the game, Mepham has already packed plenty in, not least over a century of Cherries appearances and this summer a starting role for Wales at Euro 2020.
It makes for experience that he is now tasked with spreading among his team-mates; most recently Ibsen Rossi, who made his league debut for the club in front of 25,000 fans at Nottingham Forest.
Mepham sat down with afcb.co.uk to talk about his role in the away win and guiding other members of the defence successfully through it.
“For me, going into the Forest game I didn’t want to bombard Zeno,” he said. “We’ve all seen that he’s a good player and he’s been training well and in the Carabao Cup game he looked very comfortable.
“I didn’t really need to put heaps of information on him, I just let him enjoy it. Obviously, I guided him through when the game was live but in terms of preparation I think sometimes if you have all the lads coming up to you and telling you a load of different things it can make the occasion seem more alien.
“If you leave a young player like that to go out and express themselves positively, as Zeno definitely did, then that can make it easier.
“Myself and Lloyd have made it clear to all the young lads that we’ll talk to them, help them and they’ve been more than comfortable coming to us, pulling us on the pitch if there’s a problem they face and we can help.
“We’re still learning ourselves though, it’s not like we’ve got all the answers!
“It’s felt very comfortable actually. Credit to the young lads that have come in, we’ve found ourselves in a position where we need to rely a bit more on the young lads coming through.
“But you look at the way they’ve come into the team, the manager’s shown the trust in them and if they weren’t good enough they wouldn’t be in that position.
“You look at Zeno at the weekend, JZ, Lloyd and Travs with me. We’ve got a young squad and a young back four but so far it’s been so good.
“It puts a bit more emphasis on the likes of myself and Lloyd – the slightly older lads in the team – to guide them through, it’s important to have that.”
The game had its own demands for Mepham himself, starting in an unfamiliar right-back role and with the absent Adam Smith’s boots to fill.
But did Mepham savour the experience stationed further out wide than usual?
“I didn’t enjoy getting booked after ten minutes!” He said. “It made the challenge a little bit tougher, but ultimately that’s where any experience you have you use, you don’t want to put yourself in a risky situation after that.
“At right-back we needed someone to go in there and do a job, I was the one to do it and I’m more than happy to do that, it’s for the team.
“I probably wasn’t the marauding full-back that some of the lads might have been expecting but we got the win, defended well for large periods and when going down to ten men, so lots of positives to take.”
Three hard-won points were eventually gained at the City Ground, though one of the game’s talking points, aside from the action itself, coming with the striking cactus green jerseys worn by the visitors.
“Do you know what? I really didn’t mind it,” said Mepham of his latest threads. “I saw it when it was released on Instagram and there were a few models in Ounce Coffee, as a third kit it has a different colour but I certainly didn’t mind it.
“It’s not like as players we have a massive input in the colour of the kits, it’s divided opinion but I’m definitely on the side of liking it.
“The first time we wore it we got a win so hopefully it can be our lucky kit.”
