Bournemouth’s time in the top flight came to a dramatic end with the Cherries losing way too many matches throughout the season. Undoubtedly a huge part of their poor season was the fact that for most of the campaign at least 4-5 senior players were missing injured and the Cherries didn’t have a round in which at least 1 regular was unavailable.
Not many strengths can be signalled out with the attack very poor from November onwards and the crippled back line vulnerable all campaign. Individually Harry Wilson was the star early in the campaign. He scored 6 goals in the first 14 rounds, but he also faded away fast and didn’t score any more goals after that.
The main weakness of the team was their lacklustre defending with just 1 clean sheet kept in the last 21 rounds. This combined with the run of 9 games in which only 2 goals were scored in December and January pretty much sealed Bournemouth’s fate. The other serious weakness turned out to be the faith shown by the Board in coach Howe, who obviously ran out of ideas very early in the season.
Back in the Championship and with the majority of stars set to leave this summer, Bournemouth are not likely to be in serious contention for promotion back to the Premier League in 2020/21.
