By Bulldog Drummond
Bournemouth have thus far done a bit of business in the transfer market, buying Luis Sinisterra, a winger from Leeds United, or as the Guardian tells us a “Flying winger made loan move permanent in February but has suffered recent injury setbacks”. But despite those injuries, the Cherries did cough up £20m for him.
Then there is Enes Unal, a centre forward from Getafe. Again I think he was on loan at Bournemouth for a while, so they should know what they are getting for their £14m.
Next up is Alex Paulsen who is a goalkeeper from New Zealand, but I think he is playing in the Olympics.
Finally, there is Daniel Jebbison a forward who comes in on a free from Sheffield United, who you will recall were relegated last season. United were the lowest-scoring team in the league with just 35 goals in 38 games.
In return, Bournemouth have sold Kieffer Moore for exactly the same amount of money as they have spent, which pretty much tells you how the new regulations about financial fair play are working – or in the case of one club who shall remain nameless but may be called The Infinite Money Cage – not working.
Looking at Bournemouth’s activities last season in the league they were one of 13 clubs (out of 20 of course) that had a negative goal difference. They ended up with minus 13 goals, putting them in a group that ran from Brentford (goal difference of -9) to Nottingham Forest (goal difference of -18).
Now that group overall is quite a big collection of clubs – a third of the league, in fact, and it is worth pondering this for a moment, for in terms of goal difference we actually saw five separate groups of clubs:
- The brilliant attackers GD – Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool (averaged GD +56.33)
- The modest positives GD – Aston Villa, Newcastle United, Chelsea, Tottenham (average GD +16.25)
- The small negative GD – Manchester United, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Brighton (average GD -11.0)
- The modest negative GD – Brentford, Everton, Bournemouth, West Ham, Nottingham Forest, Wolverhampton, (average GD -13.3)
- The defensive disasters – Luton, Burnley, Sheffield United. (average GD -56.3)
The point about this is that these groups are a long way apart from each other in terms of goal difference.
So for the clubs in these lower groups it is not just a case of sneaking a few more draws instead of defeats, it is the fact that the upper groups in the league are storming away – not by sneaking single goal wins but by having forward lines (or indeed whole teams) that can cut through defences like a whatnot cutting through a soft thing that is in the way.
Will we see any new players of this type with Arsenal? Our final look at newcomers who have travelled takes in Salah Eddine Oulad M’Hand who is 21, a midfielder, and according to the Arsenal site “capable of producing moments of magic, Salah-Eddine spent last season on loan at FC Den Bosch, where he scored three goals and got one assist in 19 appearances in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie, the second tier of Dutch football. He has also represented the Netherlands at international youth level.
And then we have Ethan Nwaneri, who was as you will recall, the youngest player ever to play for the first team coming on last season aged 15. Playing for the youth team he scored 18 in 20 games and in the PL2 league 11 in 15.And as if that were not enough he also knocked in 15 goals in 28 games for England Under-17s – including putting away three goals in the under 17 European Championships a couple of months ago.
