Off Topic Elphick - Bournemouth can cope

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It's great that Howson is finally getting the credit he deserves. My personal favourite was his mazy dribble through the whole Man City defence to score in the final game of Hughton's first season. The MotD pundits just put it down to poor defending! Typical.
 
Carry on playing like this and score a match winning goal or two to grab some media headlines and surely he won't be far off the England squad.
 
Norfolkbhoy said:
The next stage in our development will be when we can start to buy the sort of players capable of making a significant difference to the first team rather than just add depth to the squad which for me is where Swansea and Saints are currently. We were where Bournemouth are but three PL seasons and the willingness of the Board to keep the squad together last season have left us with arguably our strongest playing squad since the heady days of Fox, Eadie and Sutton.
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I've been thinking about this and I'd say that of the 7 players signed this summer, 6 of whom (Kean is primarily cover) are potential starters as well as providing squad depth. Dorrans offers a different option to both Howson and Hoolahan and Brady and Jarvis are both considerable upgrades on BJ on the left. Brady is also a very good LB option and Jarvis can also challenge Redmond at RW, especially as he has better tracking-back skills. Mulumbu was looking good before his injury and I think will be a regular starter when he's back. We need to see more of Mbokani, but I think he will be a regular starter in the future. All are capable of "making a significant difference to the first team rather than just add depth to the squad", so in that sense we have already moved up to the next stage.

The only real miss was at CB, but I suspect that AN decided that if he couldn't get a CB who would improve on what we have (given the demands his system puts on CBs), he'd wait until January rather than just sign someone who can cover.
 
RiverEndRick said:
I've been thinking about this and I'd say that of the 7 players signed this summer, 6 of whom (Kean is primarily cover) are potential starters as well as providing squad depth. Dorrans offers a different option to both Howson and Hoolahan and Brady and Jarvis are both considerable upgrades on BJ on the left. Brady is also a very good LB option and Jarvis can also challenge Redmond at RW, especially as he has better tracking-back skills. Mulumbu was looking good before his injury and I think will be a regular starter when he's back. We need to see more of Mbokani, but I think he will be a regular starter in the future. All are capable of "making a significant difference to the first team rather than just add depth to the squad", so in that sense we have already moved up to the next stage.

The only real miss was at CB, but I suspect that AN decided that if he couldn't get a CB who would improve on what we have (given the demands his system puts on CBs), he'd wait until January rather than just sign someone who can cover.
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I agree RER and to be fair they're doing quite well, though they will face a tough test tomorrow against Vardy and co. Also, maybe some of his targets didn't want to come as they feared we'd be going straight back down, but if we can keep up our current rate of accumulating points, we'll be safe and could easily finish in the top half of the league.
 
JRFan said:
I agree RER and to be fair they're doing quite well, though they will face a tough test tomorrow against Vardy and co. Also, maybe some of his targets didn't want to come as they feared we'd be going straight back down, but if we can keep up our current rate of accumulating points, we'll be safe and could easily finish in the top half of the league.
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There could be a chance to sign a quality CB if we're looking comfortable by January, JR, so as you say it's all about accumulating points before then.
 
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