It is at times such as these when Eddie Howe benefits from a sense of perspective. Bournemouth, ninth at the turn of the year, suddenly hover precariously above a six-club free-for-all at the foot of the Premier League, their confidence on the wane after a solitary win in eight games, defensive options decimated, and Gabriel Jesus, Leroy Sané and, if necessary, Sergio Agüero to be unleashed upon them at the Vitality Stadium on Monday. If that were not bad enough, Manchester City have scored 13 times in these sides’ three meetings in the top flight.
As scenarios go, this all feels ominous. Yet Howe can always point to having emerged from worse. Even at a club forever seeking to progress, there are occasions when reminders of the darker days before their sprint up through the divisions are opportune. “When I look back to the League Two days, they couldn’t have been bleaker,” offered the manager. “Then, going for promotion in League One, we lost five in a row and everyone thought we were going to sink back into oblivion.” He acknowledged the “heavy blows” suffered with early-season thrashings at Watford and Huddersfield as his players adjusted to life in the second tier, “so we’ve been in trickier situations than this, believe me”.
The difference now, of course, is heightened expectation after five years of ascent, and the sense of crisis whipped up from the outside at any hint of a stumble. Bournemouth’s six weeks of toil can be traced to disruption across a rearguard which had previously been relatively settled. Nathan Aké was recalled early from his loan spell by Chelsea, Simon Francis was banned and is now injured, and Adam Smith and Charlie Daniels have succumbed to strains. The goalkeeper Artur Boruc could not have escaped his club’s interest in replacing him with Asmir Begovic, a move which ultimately came to nothing. His understudy Adam Federici is out for the season after knee surgery. The unsettled makeup of the backline may explain a tally of 34 goals shipped in 13 matches in all competitions. There were actually two clean sheets in the midst of that sequence, making the recent fragility all the more alarming.
So the scrutiny inevitably fixes on the back-up options flung into the team by necessity, and transfer policy at a club small in size if big in ambition, and which has spent relatively heavily since rising into the top division. The owner Maxim Demin – who sold 25% of his stake to the Americans Matt Hulsizer and Jay Coppoletta of Peak 6 Investments in November 2015 – has not been afraid to reinvest monies raised largely via increased media revenues. Even with some fees undisclosed, or complicated by add-on clauses, the transfer outlay is around £80m, plus wages, since promotion. Yet the side who had thrived up to the new year, and to whom Howe’s instinct is still to turn, remain overwhelmingly made up of familiar faces who have accompanied him on that remarkable journey from the lower reaches of the Football League.
Some signings, including the majority recruited in the summer of 2015, have failed to settle. Max Gradel arrived from Saint-Étienne but, having suffered a serious injury early on, was almost shipped out to Hull last month. Lewis Grabban cost £7m and is on loan at Reading. Glenn Murray, who always feared he was being bought “as a Plan B or a Plan C”, never fit the blueprint and has joined Brighton, and Lee Tomlin came from Middlesbrough and departed for Bristol City having barely troubled the scorers. The same could be said for Juan Iturbe, whose six-month loan from Roma cost £1.1m and yielded two substitute appearances. It is still too early to evaluate Tyrone Mings given the horrific nature of the knee injury he sustained 12 minutes into his Premier League debut. Only Josh King, a free transfer from Blackburn, has really proved a success.
Yet, Grabban aside, at least those who have left generated similar fees upon departure. That first wave of purchases almost felt like a squad-strengthening exercise, a safety net in case the established personnel struggled. Those bought since have generally been with one eye on the future. The youthful quintet of Benik Afobe, Jordon Ibe, Lewis Cook, Lys Mousset and Brad Smith cost more than £35m but have only 20 Premier League starts between them this term of which Ibe, a record £13m arrival from Liverpool, contributed 11. Most clubs would normally expect instant returns, but Howe’s Bournemouth model permits patience. “I was happy with our recruitment last summer,” said Howe. “It will show, in time, to have been very successful. Historically, if you look at all my signings, when I first work with a player there is nearly always a period of adjustment.
“Some take longer than others really to fully understand what we expect of them. The mainstays of the team now, people you’d say are ‘real Bournemouth players’, took six months to a year to adjust to life here. That’s why we need a little bit of patience with the younger guys.” Howe, who conducts weekly telephone conversations with Demin, has earned the hierarchy’s trust. The board have apparently accepted there will be periods where even major signings drift to the periphery, quietly working for their chance.
The adjustment period centres upon syncing with Howe’s training demands. New arrivals can be taken aback by the physical and mental intensity of sessions. Bournemouth’s trademark scintillating play looks as if it comes naturally, but is born of endless drilling. Each squad member must understand the movement expected of him, and the responsibility he carries, until it is instinctive. Howe cited City as a team whose style he wishes to emulate, but is seeking to do so with players from lower down the pyramid. Those most attuned to the manager’s approach – Harry Arter, Ryan Fraser, Marc Pugh, Dan Gosling, Junior Stanislas, Andrew Surman, Steve Cook and his fellow defenders – learned what was needed rising through the divisions. That they have established themselves in the Premier League is testament to Howe’s methods.
Those brought in since are raising their game in the environment of an unforgiving division. It is hardly a surprise the two summer additions who thrived were Aké, who joined Chelsea at 15, and Jack Wilshere, whose pedigree, if not his fitness, was clear. They were already elite performers. Younger recruits such as Cook, outstanding with Leeds last term, need time. “Lewis is another player who’s improving as he gets to know our work and what we want from him,” said Howe. “He has some very good players ahead of him. Time will tell how quickly he gets that starting spot.”
Ibe needed guidance through life after Liverpool. “But Jordon has improved immensely and he’s really beginning to deliver on the promise he showed when he first signed,” said the manager. The winger signed a four-year contract last summer and, although the size of the fee can appear eye-watering, even that requires context. Matt Ritchie, then almost 27, had two years on his contract at Bournemouth, and had apparently indicated no intention to renew, when he was sold for £12m to Newcastle. Should Ibe, only recently 21, develop and prosper then that will appear a very sound piece of business.
The Premier League rarely allows the focus to linger on the bigger picture and prioritising steady evolution carries risks. The players upon whom this club has long relied, geed up by greater competition within the ranks, will eventually run out of steam. Runs as miserable as the current blip may expose crack-lines but, with six clubs beneath them, now is not the time to insist the philosophy will fail. The hope is there will always be ready-made replacements in situ when the time inevitably comes, with others in the pipeline.
The pace of Bournemouth’s rise means that the club is still playing catch-up off the pitch. They will eventually depart the Vitality Stadium for a new, more opulent home having now employed a project manager to scrutinise three prospective sites and liaise with the local council. That will truly be Howe’s legacy. The desire to fit in at this level also led to an expansion of the recruitment department after the chief scout Des Taylor’s move to Bristol City in April, supplementing the existing staff – led by the former Scotland midfielder Richard Hughes as technical director and with Andy Howe, Eddie’s nephew, heading its domestic division – with personnel designated to concentrate on foreign markets.
They have appointed scouts for France and Spain as a club which has made a habit of buying and developing British talent branches out. Andy Burton, the former Sky Sports reporter, is now a senior recruitment consultant whose duties include compiling background checks on targets. The whole department must unearth players who can be assimilated into Howe’s squad. Such an infrastructure might sound basic when compared to that long established at City but Bournemouth, who had never competed in the elite before 2015, are building up from a lower base, and at pace.
Howe’s influence inevitably permeates the whole set-up, with the manager far from panicked by the recent dip in form. It is a quirk of this club’s recent history that they have often endured lulls in the new year. Yet that losing run in League One in 2013 did not prevent promotion, or one win in seven undermine consolidation in the Championship the following season. They still went up in 2015 despite failing to win in February, while last year’s winless run in the same month was four. Perhaps the cluttered calendar takes its toll.
Regardless, this is no time for panic.
“The first year in the Premier League was going to be really tough, and the second year was going to be even harder,” said Howe. “But history tells us that, if we stay together, we can achieve anything we want to achieve.”
