Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth have been a joy to watch in recent years with offensive football against whichever opponent they face, which made for exciting games with plenty of goals. During the current five season spell in the Premier League, Bournemouth have relied on their goalscoring ability to simply outscore the opposition despite having defensive issues along the way. From the 15/16 season where they came up to the PL, to the end of last season’s campaign, they conceded a total of 265 goals in 152 games, an average of 1.74 goals- a gargantuan amount. They’ve managed to score 201 goals along the way, a 1.32 goal a game average, which has sufficed.
This season’s downward spiral has been down to the lack of goals, the Cherries are currently sitting in 18th position (level on points with 16th and 17th placed West Ham and Watford) with 27 points in 29 games and with 29 goals scored. The usual threshold for Premier League safety tends to be marked at 40 points, in recent seasons anywhere between 37-40 has seemed to be enough but if the season was to continue it’d take a real turn around to see that happen.
Tyrone Mings was sent on loan to Aston Villa in January 2019 and later joined them for a £20 million fee last summer, but he is exactly what Bournemouth are lacking with all their registered defenders suffering one or more injuries each throughout this year. Lloyd Kelly was purchased from Bristol City for £13,000,000 after looking very promising at full-back in the Championship but he suffered a hamstring injury in early November and hasn’t been seen at all in the PL this season. Arnaut Groeneveld cost the Cherries £13,700,000 and similar to Kelly has been riddled with injuries and hasn’t hit the scene as expected, he’s only played 405 minutes in the PL but there’s bound to be more to come once he’s returned to full fitness.
It’s arguably been an unfortunate season for Bournemouth with new signings getting injured and the trend doesn’t end with the new signings. Josh King has missed 10 out of 29 games through injury and David Brooks has been injured since July 2019. The Welshman lit the league up in his debut year after arriving from Sheffield United, he contributed to 13 goals and always looked a threat up until his injury and there’s been a significant setback in the goalscoring of Bournemouth ever since.
Bournemouth’s performance relies on a fit squad and the likes of Calum Wilson, Nathan Ake and Aaron Ramsdale have been able to keep Bournemouth from really falling away from the pack. There’s the obvious likelihood for a summer signing overhaul if they were to stay in the Premier League, Eddie Howe’s side will more than likely sign an experienced PL goalkeeper someone along the lines of Michel Vorm who is currently Tottenham’s third goalkeeper but would be more than capable of a supporting role to young Ramsdale. An addition defensively could be seen as a good signing with the likes of Simon Francis moving into his more advanced years, Ben Godfrey would be an excellent replacement considering the likelihood of Norwich being relegated, he could be snapped up on a relatively cheap deal and he’d be a perfect partner for Nathan Ake to really sure up the defensive woes. Harry Wilson is currently on loan and has been a rare shining light this season and a permanent deal to keep him at the Vitality would be a great deal too.
Eddie Howe is vital to what Bournemouth are doing and they’ve got a better squad than the teams around them so they’re undoubtedly capable of staying in the Premier League but as the pandemic continues, we’ll wait and see what the PL board decides for the rest of the season.
samyets 