With the departure of Eddie Howe and Jason Tindall, caretaker manager Lee Bradbury has declared himself up for the challenge of managing the Cherries first team.
Speaking in the Bournemouth Evening Echo, Bradbury is quoted as saying: "With Eddie leaving, the chairman probably felt it had to be filled by someone in-house because he wanted to keep the continunity going. There is great togetherness and camaradierie among the squad and he didn’t want to risk losing that. There is never a perfect time to hang up your boots or to go into management. I feel I could play for at least another couple of years but, the way I look at it, this could be the start of a 20-year career in management. I’m not getting ahead of myself but you have got to be positive and have self belief".
On the role of Steve Fletcher, Bradbury goes on to say: "Fletch is invaluable to the squad. He has proved it so many times. He comes on and changes games or has a major impact when he starts. It was important that he carried on playing. We are under no illusions that there are a lot of very good teams in this division but we have still got the same group of players. We have had a great first half to the season and there is no reason why we can’t be as successful over the second half. Staying in the division may have been the aim when we got promotion but I think we have set our sights much higher now. They are a great bunch of lads and have done brillinatly over the past couple of years. I’ve spoken to the players, both as a group and some on an individual basis, and they are behind us. They are really hungry for us to be successful".