Who do Bournemouth sign this summer?

 Where do Bournemouth need to strengthen? 

Bournemouth will be likely forced into an unwanted rebuild this summer and I'm here to attempt to settle some nerves and show you who id sign if I was Simon Francis and Tiago Pinto this summer. We all know that Bournemouth are going to need a new GK to replace the departing Kepa this summer as well as a new LB to fill the gap left by the strong, pacy and aggressive Milos Kerkez , as well as potentially 2 new CB's to replace the departed Dean Huijsen and the potentially Illya Zabarnyi. And lastly potentially a midfielder to compete with the likes of Lewis Cook and Tyler Adams in Bournemouth's engine room or a backup striker to replace the seemingly injury prone Enes Unal. The question is who do Bournemouth go for and why?

Goalkeepers

A player whom I've already mentioned in previous articles of mine Gabriel Batista, a young Brazilian who can significantly improve Bournemouth in the goalkeeping department for a relatively cheap fee... the Brazilian has had an incredibly successful season with Santa Clara helping them to a 5th place finish in Liga Portugal, But now its time to take a deeper look at his stats. A simple glance at his stats tells you all you need to know a powerhouse in the air with an ariel success rate of 97.5% per game. As well as this the Brazilian is a fantastic shot stopper whom only conceded 35 goals across the whole season, 10 better than Bournemouth keeper Kepa. However a flaw in Gabriel's game would be his distribution per game on average he makes 8.1 passes of which 42.5% are long passes and only 18.8% are short passes although his lack of passes per game isn't a huge issue Andoni Iraola does prefer a keeper who is adaptable with their feet and as the Premier League becomes more focused on attempting to try find minor details to influence games a keeper who can distribute both long and short on a regular basis through out a game is key for most managers. Whether Gabriel would be able to adapt to such a style is yet to be seen however a player of his quality you'd feel as if in the right environment he should be able to develop. Arguably as well you could keep him around as a backup if the move wasn't to work out, with what will likely be a low transfer fee and low wages its a no brainer move in my opinion!

Left Back

Another player of which I've already mentioned and has in fact now been signed by Bournemouth in Adrien Truffert. A perfect replacement sourced by Bournemouth already in a deal seemingly only worth £14m is fantastic business by Simon Francis and Tiago Pinto. And here now is a small snippet from my deeper dive into Truffert so you can see what to expect. As described in the graph below Truffert is listed as "flyers" of whom complete a huge amount of attacking overlaps and high intensity actions per 90. This is likely why Truffert is seen as a direct replacement for Kerkez with a very similar profile in attacking actions and with a high resell value in the future its the typical Bournemouth signing. Per 90 Truffert average 65.2 touches of the ball as well as 1.27 chances created and 1.24 successful crosses which is above 72% of all full backs across Europe further highlighting the attacking threat the young Frenchman delivers. However he also backs up his ability on the defensive end as well, with with 61 tackles attempted this season and 36 of them successful that gives the young man just over a 50% tackle success rate as well as this he has also completed 27 interceptions and 44 blocks including both passes and shots, across the 24/25 season the type of stat that Andoni Iraola and his coaching staff will love as they look to replace the departing Kerkez and keep the high pressing, high intensity football that has become so popular on the south coast this season. To see the full deep dive into Truffert and Kerkez and why I think Truffert is the perfect replacement you can view my piece here Kerkez/Truffert Deep Dive 

Centre Backs

Again a position of which I have lightly covered in the potential scenario that Illya Zabarnyi was to depart Bournemouth, However with Dean Huijsen being announced by Real Madrid as I write this it makes you wonder how many centre backs do Bournemouth need and who should they go for? My first suggestion would be 26 year old John Lucumi, Lucumi aged 26 with a chance to be available for a rumoured fee of £25m could be a suitable replacement for AFC Bournemouth. a player whom enjoys carrying the ball into midfield and also has a huge amount of forward passes could be an ideal replacement for AFC Bournemouth. However there are falls in his game, Lucumi has a duel % of only 27.8% this is significantly weaker than Zabarnyi. And there are other weakness too such as his ariel duel % only being 5% which for a league so heavily dominated by physically imposing centre backs this could be a huge issue for AFC Bournemouth if he is not partnered with the right player. So although John Lucumi maybe a option for Bournemouth as stated he'd need to be partnered with a very specific kind of player... So the question is who do you partner him with? Well i can think of 3 strong candidates ranging from Solet of Udinese, Winter of Genoa and last but by no means least Ottele of Fortuna Sittard. When looking at these players id be looking at a direct replacement for Dean Huijsen and to fit Bournemouth's style of recruitment they'd ideally want someone inexpensive to sign but with the potential to have significant resale value in 2-3 years time.

Firstly lets take a look at Solet when comparing his stats to that of Dean Huijsen we can see that Huijsen does have significantly higher progressive passes per 90, however in a system such as Bournemouth's Solet may find more success in being able to break lines into midfield as his forward passes per 90 aren't too different to Huijsen. Defensively the two players are highly similar and could allow Bournemouth to have a smooth transition from Huijsen to Solet, however a big flaw in Solet's game is his defensive duel % unfortunately for Bournemouth it is nearly 40% lower than Dean Huijsen's was something that could be costly in a league so physical as the Premier League. Moving next one Winter a personal favourite of mine a young player who has had a real impact at his time in Genoa and when we look to compare him with Huijsen we can see again they're not too far off each other, Huijsen yet again creating more progressive passes per 90 but with Winter's high forward pass % in a system so built around progressive fast flowing football he'd be an ideal ball playing centre back, however Winter does lack the talented ball carrying Huijsen possessed something that allowed Bournemouth to often progressive from defence to attack so quickly so this could be a mark down for the young man. With defensive numbers all round similar to that of Dean Huijsen defensively you cant have to many complaints about Winter and you could class him as the dream replacement. Lastly and by no means least is Ottele of Fortuna Sittard, many would classify this as a complete outside shout yet when we compare the stats he could be the perfect man... Ottele isn't someone who plays huge amounts of forward passes however he plays more progressive passes per 90 than Huijsen last season something which would be highly sort after by Bournemouth to aid in breaking down midfields across the country. Defensively there is also massive successes for Ottele with a huge ariel presence and incredibly high defensive actions per 90 he'd be an ideal player for Bournemouth, although his duel % is lower than Huijsen moving into a top 5 league and playing alongside someone such as Zabarnyi he would do excellently. 

Midfielders 

Bournemouth do have a rather strong engine room including the likes of Tyler Adams, Lewis Cook and Ryan Christie but due to injuries and suspension across the season at points the midfield was left on it's last legs so to add an extra pair of legs may benefit Bournemouth and help spread the heavy workload across there 3 stars in the middle. Using Christie's stats from last season as he is the oldest out of Bournemouth's trio I have found 3 potential replacements with the help of Simplyafcb. Three player's we liked are the talented midfield maestro Sergi Altimira, Denis Zakaria and Engelhardt, these 3 players are all at least 2 year younger than Ryan Christie with Altimira being the youngest at only 23 years of age fitting Bournemouth philosophy of developing younger talent and making profit. Firstly lets take a look at Real Betis Sergi Altimira coming off the back of UEFA Conference league final the young Spaniard has had a highly successful season and was Simplyafcb's pick for a potential eventual replacement for Christie. Although the Spaniard does fall short of Christie in every metric he's the kind of player who could grow into the role similar to that of Ryan Christie himself... In fact when comparing the stats he is almost closer to a Lewis Cook type of player someone who's workload for Bournemouth was incredibly heavy last season and to have the cover in that role could massively aid Bournemouth's hopes of another top 10 finish.

Next up we have the ex Chelsea man Denis Zakaria now playing for Monaco Zakaria would be seen as the dream signing for Bournemouth and not one who'd have particularly high resell value in the future. At the age of 28 Zakaria is an experienced pro and one that could help settle the young and energetic side Bournemouth have especially in big games. With a huge amount of forward passes per 90 and a high duel % rate he'd be the perfect midfielder to win the ball back high in Bournemouth's high press and help launch fast paced counter attacks into players like Semenyo, Evanilson and more. Although a flaw in Zakaria game would be his previous stint in the Premier League, having played for Chelsea previously the Swiss international never managed to settle into the Premier League and with Monaco likely to command a large fee for the Swiss man it could be a move that involves a huge amount of risk for Bournemouth. Lastly we have the incredibly talented German midfielder Engelhardt, a player who has played in two of the top leagues in Europe and played major roles for both clubs he's been at. Now at Como working under fellow Spaniard Cesc Fabregas, Engelhardt is a bit of a carbon copy of Christie although playing significantly less key passes per 90 on the whole he is a player who within a couple of season under Iraola could grow into a fabulous midfielder for Bournemouth.  

Strikers

Evanilson ran Bournemouth's frontline almost single handily last season due to Enes Unal's unfortunate ACL injury, with Bournemouth looking to progress in the season just past with the arrival of Eli Junior Kroupi do Bournemouth need another striker? I'd say so! My choice would be Estoril striker Andre Lacximicant who help the Portuguese outfit to an 8th place last season. Although only scoring 5 last season and assisting 3 this came from only 993 minutes across the league campaign yet he produced numbers very similar to that of Evanilson. In fact he had a similar XG to that of the Brazilian something very hard to match, even contributing more passes to the box per 90 something that ex Bournemouth striker Dominic Solanke used to do very well. With a market value using Transfermakrt of less than £1m it seems almost to good to be true! Now we must remember that Liga Portugal is very different to that of the Premier League and the transition between both leagues takes a huge amount of time and many players often never make that transition successfully and this is something we must remember when considering this transfer. 

Conclusion 

When comparing all these potential moves to the out goings already expected we can definitely say its going to be a busy summer at Dean Court in arguably one that could be make or break for Bournemouth as they look set to loose at least a few of there key players. I will be covering more over on my X account as the summer goes on so if you haven't checked out my thread of potential Semenyo replacements take a look and see if you think I've made the right decision. Semenyo to Spurs?! 

Credit to DataMB for all the stats provided in this article.