AFCB: My Opinion of the Season 22/23

Firstly, I'd like to make clear that, in the position Gary O'Neil inherited this club, that he has done a fantastic job keeping this group of players in the Premier League in his first job in management. Very few managers with the experience level he has would've been able to achieve this feat. We saw at Southampton with Nathan Jones; Steven Gerrard at Aston Villa and Frank Lampard at Everton all underperform and subsequently lose their jobs. With that taken into account, I am not writing this article to begrudge or downplay the achievements of O'Neil - just to caveat the claims that he should be manager of the season from a lot of football pundits.  

The Season as a Whole

The start of the season saw us win our opening game against Aston Villa and then subsequently faced Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool. After the 9-0 drubbing from Liverpool; Scott Parker lost his job. Many at the time were critical of the timing of the sacking due to the fact we'd played 3 of the top 6 in our last 3 games; but many did not see the comments made by Parker after the Liverpool game and the feeling around the club both at the start of the season and last season too. A lot of the Bournemouth fanbase were grateful to Scott Parker for getting us promoted to the Premier League but many were frustrated by his pragmatic style of football - particularly in lieu of Eddie Howe's exciting back and forth football many people had become accustomed to. There were games where he was prepared to sit on 1-0 leads and didn't seek to keep the pressure on teams which allowed for a lot of nervy games; particularly towards the end of the season. People were also somewhat disconnected from Parker; I've been going to AFC Bournemouth games for over a decade and all I've known is a manager that loves the town and the club and plays excellent, exciting football. To shift from that to the polar opposite - someone who has no history with the club bar his relation to former cherry Harry Arter; it was easy to see why there was a disconnect.

So when Scott Parker made his damning comments about the squad not being good enough; I believe that was the straw that broke the camels back - not necessarily the 9-0 loss in isolation. From this, Gary O'Neil inherited a squad that was written off by everyone - including their former manager. From here O'Neil picked up vital wins against Nottingham Forest, Leicester, and Everton; with a few draws in there before his interim tenure would be up at the start of the World Cup break. I and many believed that he had done his job of steadying the ship and with a new takeover occurring before Christmas - we were angling for a new manager. Towards the end of his interim tenure, we had squandered 2 goal leads against Leeds and Tottenham partly due to tactical decisions to go defensive once we had the lead. These errors could've cost us dearly as in both games we were cruising and playing well until these decisions were made. I and some believed the inexperience at this level from O'Neil would cost us and sought a new manager. 

It was announced during the World Cup break that Gary O'Neil had been given the job permanently by Bill Foley and the new American consortium who had taken over from previous owner Maxim Denim. During the takeover, Bournemouth fans were being told by the new owners of the lofty ambitions they had for the club and how they wanted to take Bournemouth to European competitions in the near future. With all due respect to O'Neil, his appointment after these claims didn't fill the fanbase with much optimism. 

The period after the World Cup also added more doubt over the decision as Bournemouth were without a win in 9 games in all competitions - with many calling for him to be sacked. Bournemouth then secured a vital win over relegation rivals Wolves and an unlucky loss to title chasing Arsenal started to uplift the feeling of the fans. Over the next 9 games, the cherries won 6 including wins over Tottenham and Liverpool which all but secured their Premier League status with 39 points. Since their 4-1 thrashing of relegation threatened Leeds - they are pointless with 1 game to play. 

Opinion on the Season

I have been an AFC Bournemouth fan since I was 12 (now 23) and have seen Bournemouth play in League 1, the Championship and the Premier League. I have been a season ticket holder for 11 years and have seen or been to almost every game in those 11 years. AFC Bournemouth are, and have been, a criminally underrated club since I started following them. A lot of plaudits are given to historically 'small' clubs reaching the Premier League - the likes of Brighton, Huddersfield, Brentford in recent years but Bournemouth are undoubtedly the smallest club to have ever reached and stayed in the Premier League. Most football fans of a certain age and above do tend to look at history as a direct substitute for merit when determining who they want in the Premier League. Certain pundits will suggest it's 'bad for the league' if smaller clubs like Bournemouth or Brentford get promoted whilst clubs like Sunderland or Blackburn are in the Championship. I personally believe in meritocracy and on merit, Bournemouth have been one of the best 20 clubs in England for the past 8 years - better than all of the so called 'big' teams that are in the lower divisions. 

Now why does all this matter? At the start of the season Bournemouth signed a handful of players (Tavernier, Fredericks, Rothwell, Neto and Senesi) and many pundits and ex-players wrote us off as 20th nailed on relegation fodder. I would counter these claims by suggesting a lot of the team we had that got relegated under Eddie Howe was still at the club 2 years later when we returned. If you've followed Bournemouth at all since Eddie Howe took over you'd know generally we'd have a mid-season wobble and then kick on and finish strong - which is why we were in the Premier League for 5 seasons prior to our relegation. Bournemouth (along with probably most teams) thrived on momentum and when Howe's Bournemouth had that momentum, they were a challenge for anyone in the division on their day. Circumstances surrounding Covid-19 meant as Bournemouth were getting into their end-of-season groove - play stopped meaning they lost their momentum. Couple that with losing Nathan Ake to injury (undoubtedly the best player to ever wear a Bournemouth shirt) with some controversy with goal-line technology - Bournemouth were extremely unlucky to be relegated that season. Under normal circumstances, I would bet my life savings on them staying up.

After relegation Bournemouth lost some key players in Nathan Ake, Joshua King, Callum Wilson and Aaron Ramsdale - but the core of the squad remained for their two year stint in the Championship. Once promoted, Bournemouth added to their already Premier League quality squad with the above listed signings as well as a few highly touted youngsters in January. Here is where I move onto my problem with Gary O'Neil for manager of the season.

Why Gary O'Neil shouldn't be Manager of the Season

As stated at the start of this piece - Bournemouth staying in the Premier League with historical context is a remarkable achievement. There are clubs in League 1 that are historically bigger and more successful than Bournemouth and yet the cherries are the ones in the elite 20 of the country. However, when you add modern context to the achievement and don't look at it as 'oh Bournemouth, small club, newly promoted, they'll go down' - you start to see why he is receiving praise above his station in my opinion. The reason pundits all around the footballing space are giving O'Neil the plaudits is because they all took the approach stated above - they'd written Bournemouth off before a ball was kicked because of historical bias rather than looking at the actual quality within the squad. 

I think in this instance two things can be true at the same time; Gary O'Neil has done very well in his first job in management; Gary O'Neil has underperformed with the tools at his disposal. What I mean by the second statement is I believe a different manager would be able to get this group of players to between 45 and 55 points (a best-of-the-rest placement) in the league. Bournemouth's best ever points total in the Premier League was 46 under Eddie Howe and that was with players like Steve Cook, Simon Francis, Harry Arter and Marc Pugh still featuring heavily in that campaign. With all due respect to those players, they were mostly (at worst) League 1 players and (at best) Championship players. Even Eddie's recruitment that year - Jack Wilshere on loan, King hit form (formerly a Championship player). Most of the players that started that season were playing Championship football or lower less than a couple seasons prior. Bournemouth finished that season 9th and whilst we never finished that high again - until our relegation season, we didn't look close to being relegated. 

With all that being said - with the exception of Nathan Ake and Callum Wilson - I believe man for man we have better players than we did when we finished 9th. This is why I believe we underperformed under Gary O'Neil. If an exceptional manager can bleed every ounce of talent out of effectively League 1 players and graft them to finish 9th then you have to concede that the Premier League players O'Neil inherited didn't perform to the levels of which they are capable of. 

I believe O'Neil deserves praise for achieving what he has in his first job in management but to say he deserves Manager of the Season is a reach for me. I believe the only reason he is getting the praise and recommendations for the award is because of how low pundits rated us (wrongly in my opinion) at the start of the season. 

The problem Bournemouth has now is to stick or twist; do you remain loyal to O'Neil because he kept you up or continue to develop your ambition with a more proven manager to progress beyond just a relegation fighting team? 

Concluding Thoughts