How Can AFC Bournemouth Manage 2 Games A Week Whilst In An Injury Crisis?

Injuries to both Alex Scott and David Brooks in the last week have shown Cherries fans that playing European football for the first time has no mercy for anyone, no matter how well preparations go in pre season or how good you consider your teams squad depth to be.

A lot of chat before the season was on how Bournemouth will manage playing 2 games a season, and the 2nd half performance against Liverpool just 3 days after the victory over Real Sociedad showed that even when Alex Scott started and Brooks came off the bench, Cherries looked leggy and devoid of ideas for the whole second half. 

If the performance against Liverpool was a sign of how AFCB are going to play in the Premier League a matter of days after a European fixture, it will be increasingly more difficult for performances to become more consistent throughout the 90 minutes, especially as they are without both of their 2 most technically gifted players. 

The biggest factor into maintaining solid performances across the board when playing upwards of 50 games in a season is rotation of the squad. As mentioned above, the performance before the break against Liverpool was considerably worse when compared to the Sociedad game, and that is because the only change to the starting XI was Ryan Christie coming in for Justin Kluivert. 

There are players that have performed well in cameos off the bench that need to be utilised more in games to help balance the minutes across the squad. Players like Alex Toth, Ben Gannon-Doak, Ryan Christie and Julio Soler have all looked encouraging when they have played this season, yet have only got a combined minutes played of 132 minutes in the Premier League. 

Under Andoni Iraola, Bournemouth were such an effective team as there were always substitutions around the hour mark, so the level of intensity could be maintained, minutes can be managed easier and it also gives the players coming on enough time to grow into the game. This should be an even bigger part of Marco Rose's managerial style now that Bournemouth have a thin squad and are playing more games than under Iraola. 

Kluivert rarely ever completed a over an hour under Iraola, but played 83 minutes vs Sociedad, 81 vs Everton and 76 against Newcastle, and is now injured. It is clear that minutes need to be managed better, and if Rose doesn't start to make changes sooner and rotate the starting XI with some of the players mentioned above, fatiugue will ramp up and Bournemouth will continue to drop off significantly in the 2nd half and struggle to win games in the league.