Can Bournemouth defy the odds and stay up?

Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe will be hoping to continue to defy the odds by keeping the Cherries in the Premier League in the new season

Last season Bournemouth were the surprise package in the Championship and finished the season as champions of the English second tier.

Boss Eddie Howe seems to have the Midas touch when it comes to winning promotion with the Cherries.

Fairytale

I know I keep banging on about Bournemouth’s rise to the Premier League being like a fairytale, but it is an amazing story, the sort of story that football does not produce very often. The Cherries have gone from rags to riches in just five years.

To be fair to the Cherries their rise to the Premier League has been an incredible and an unexpected one even by most fans admissions I would bet.

Minnows

Bournemouth are a very small club compared to some of the opponents that they are likely to come across in the new season. Their 11,700 capacity Goldsands Stadium is more like a League One stadium than a Premier League one.

Boss Eddie Howe stated after their promotion that they would not be expanding their ground. In fact boss Howe has stated that he hopes to use it as a psychological advantage. The club were due to expand their stadium, but those pans are now on hold for a season at least.

Historic

The new campaign will be a historic one for AFC Bournemouth. It will be the first time the Cherries have ever graced the top-level of English football. They are more accustomed to playing in the third and fourth tier of the English game, having only featured in the second tier twice in their history.

It is sure to be an exciting new experience for Cherries fans, who have probably only ever dreamt of seeing their team play in the top-flight.

Style

Bournemouth may have been written-off by many as relegation fodder, but the Cherries are not in the Premier League to make up the numbers by any means.

The Cherries deserved to win the Championship title last season and played some very good football in the process. For a former centre-back Eddie Howe’s football philosophy is definitely more expansive than his style as a player.

His team were the top scorers in the second tier last season and played the sort of passing football that most Premier League teams would be proud of.

Impressive

I cannot sing the praises of Howe enough. At 37-years-old he is without doubt one of the brightest young British bosses in the game. He has already won promotion three times during his managerial career with the Cherries and he comes across as a very knowledgeable guy.

Howe also comes across as a confident guy who will not be fazed by coming up against the likes of Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger and Louis van Gaal in the new season.

Ambitious

Some clubs come up from the Championship and show hardly any ambition to stay up, with Burnley the perfect example from last season. The Clarets hardly spent any money in strengthening their squad and went straight back down to the second tier.

The Cherries may not have spent a fortune on their five new signings, but they did crucially break their transfer record with the £8million signing of highly-rated full-back Tyrone Mings from Ipswich.

That sort of spending on one player showed that the Cherries mean business in the new campaign and are not just preparing for a quick return to the second tier. The fact that Mings had reportedly been scouted by the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea suggests he may just be a decent prospect for the future.

Surprise

Bournemouth could surprise a lot of people in the Premier League. They are currently odds of 6/5 to be relegated, but I doubt that will worry Eddie Howe or his team.

The Cherries have some very promising players and a bright young boss who seems to have a wise head on such young shoulders. They are not a team who will go into the night quietly and I cannot see them marooned at the bottom of the table.

Bournemouth’s rise may be a fairytale story, but they will have to be taken seriously in the new campaign. If they are not then a lot of Premier League teams could end up with bloody noses in the coming campaign.

Can Bournemouth defy the odds and stay in the Premier League?