Cherries Chairman Eddie Mitchell is clearly preparing the ground for further player sales (before the current transfer window closes?), while blaming the fans for not turning up in sufficient number to prevent such sales!
Speaking in the Bournemouth Evening Echo, Mitchell is quoted as saying: "We competed on the pitch but, as soon as the season had ended, the bigger clubs swooped for our players. We couldn’t come anywhere near giving them what those clubs could. If we were getting bigger crowds, the players would be able to earn more money here. At the moment, we can’t afford to compete with the bigger clubs, even those in the same division. All the clubs in the Championship are likely to have 10,000-plus averages this season. Unless we get our act together and get more people through the doors, we would never fit in. We have worked hard and have got a stadium worthy of the Championship. Everything is in place but we have been stripped of a few of our key assets purely because they were tempted with more money. We are aiming to stay in this division but have also got to be ambitious enough to want to move up a league for the second time in our history. That is my goal and, if I didn’t believe it could be achieved, I wouldn’t be here. I am not convinced we have got the numbers to get us there and I am very despondent about it. I know we have sold players but, unless gates increase, it is going to be very difficult to keep hold of other players. Other than find somebody to throw a lot of money at it, which isn’t easy, I don’t think there is anything we can do about it. We can only spend what comes through the gate, otherwise we would jeopardise the club’s future and that is not going to happen. I certainly want the club to go further, otherwise I would not be here. But you start to doubt yourself sometimes and I am not one for standing still. If the numbers don’t improve, we aren’t going to go any further".