One thing that has been missing from the Cherries in the past few seasons has been the lack of players that have come up through the ranks from a youngster at Dean Court, having nurtured the likes of Brett Pitman, Danny Ings and Sam Vokes in days gone by. Manager Eddie Howe wants to get back to being in a position to get that conveyor belt working again.
Speaking in the Bournemouth Evening Echo on that subject, he's quoted as saying, with specific reference to the development players they brought in during the transfer window: "We didn’t bring in these players with a view to blocking the pathway of our young players. We did it to enhance their development. If you want strength in depth and a good youth structure, you have to have a strong development squad. You are never going to develop players when you only have four or five training together. You need a stronger squad so we had to increase the numbers. We didn’t think the strength was there in the youth team at the moment to push those lads through so we had to recruit. The standard of training will no doubt increase with the quality of player and also the number of players and will give us a much better chance to bring through players in the longer term".