Sitting in the Premier League’s 9th position and with worse teams below them, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Eddie Howe is set for more back-slapping praise following yet another impressive season with the Cherries. Contrary to popular belief, could this in-fact be the season where the wheels fall off for the south coasters.
After 125 years in the football wilderness, ie lower league football, AFC Bournemouth were finally promoted to the top division of English following a successful 2014/15 Championship campaign.
Given their extremely small transfer budget, lack of Premier League experience, not to mention tiny gate receipts, the media threw rightly deserved superlatives at the club for avoiding the drop in their debut season – achieving 16th place.
Despite their obvious shortcomings, Howe continued to coach the side into becoming an even more impressive attacking unit. Not only were Bournemouth going toe-to-toe with the big boys, they were doing it with relative swagger. 9th, 12th and 14th positions followed in consecutive seasons.
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This Saturday Manchester United come to the Vitality Stadium. The Cherries aim to put an end to their four-game winless run in the Premier League, since they have failed to find the net in their previous three league fixtures, Eddie Howe’s troops are looking odds on for a demoralising home defeat.
Such a verdict is an example of how quick a week is in football. Just 7 days prior Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was staring at a possible sacking. On the wrong side of the table and with quality clearly lacking from the team, an away victory at Norwich last weekend was a huge boost to the sides morale – and boy did they look good for the win. Busy taking the brunt of the home contingent’s criticism for much of the season, Marcus Rashford added his 5th goal of the season and combined brilliantly with Martial throughout.
Transfer disappointment
Bounemouth’s recruits during the Summer were 22 -year old winger Arnaut Danjuma from Club Brugge (20m), 20-year old right back Lloyd Kelly, signed from Bristol City, as well as centre-midfielder Philip Billing, a 18m signing from Huddersield. None of the recruits have pulled up trees thus far.
Whilst it’s clearly early days, Howe has wasted big money on ineffectual players for much of his tenure. For every David Brooks, their is a Jefferson Lerna, or a Jordan Ibe. Such lack of reulst could finnaly bite the club on the arse in the business end of the season.
Whilst the board have looked at Howe with a God-like awe, perhaps this will play against him if the results dry up. Ater all, the Premier League is a dog-eat-dog industry.
Loss of belief?
Still sitting 4 places below Bournemouth moving into November, you’d imagine Eddie Howe and co would be licking their lips ahead of Saturday’s fixture – they may in-fact be a tad worries. Yes the club has quite rightly earned a tag as big club killers, defeat at the Vitality will mean the Cherries have knocked up 1 win in 6 – something that will play on the minds of the squad.
With fixtures against fellow potential relegation fodder Newcastle and Wolves to come, Howe will need to overcome the overwhelming pressure to find points, perhaps such pressure will make his side divert from a their tried and tested attacking style. Once that happened it could be curtains for the south coasters.