Don’t let the Premier spoil you,Cherries

BOURNEMOUTH are anything but middle of the road. But as the Cherries prepare for the big time, they should take some advice from Billy Joel: Don’t go changing. Don’t stop playing. Don’t stop passing. Don’t stop sending centre-backs haring up the wing. The Premier League has enough staid, negative sides, cravenly parking the bus and grimly clinging to their £130m paycheck.

It has enough managers who will tell you that ‘Good football is winning football’, that there is ‘no such thing as a long ball, only the right ball’.

All whilst strangling the life out of the beautiful game, then complaining about being last on Match of the Day.

Watching Bournemouth go for the jugular reminds me of sitting in the stands at St James’ watching Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle side rip up the division. They were naive, they didn’t win a bean, but they were loved by everyone for their kamikaze commitment to entertainment.

Sure, the Cherries will take some hidings. But as Swansea proved under Brendan Rodgers, playing good football is no impediment to survival.

In an era where holding midfielders are glorified and Jose Mourinho’s reactive, risk-free football is the divisional benchmark, they will provide a welcome reminder of football’s ability to inspire.

Don’t go spending, at least not much. With £90m burning a hole in owner Max Demin’s pocket, Eddie Howe will suddenly become very popular among the football agent fraternity.

You can just imagine the cavalcade of has-beens lurching up to the Goldsands promising ‘Premier League experience’ and looking for one last payday.

He should – and will – send them packing. This is not about sentiment, though only a hard heart would deny stalwarts like Harry Arter, Simon Francis and Brett Pitman a shot at glory.

It is about innocence. None of those players is scarred by Premier League battles past. None is afraid of the challenge. The last thing they need is a cynical old superstar raining on their parade.

More importantly, Howe and his players have proved time and again that they can learn and adapt in double quick time.

If men like Matt Ritchie and Callum Wilson can strut their stuff on the grandest stage, it would provide further evidence – just as Charlie Austin and Danny Ings have – that the perceived lack of English talent is a myth peddled by managers too self-interested to risk kids.

But above all, don’t change your values. Don’t stop being a proper community club. Don’t stop the players chatting with supporters on their way into the stadium, just as Ritchie and Arter did before that monumental victory over Bolton.

Cocoon

There are no cursory autographs at the Goldsands. No thousand-yard stares, no giant headphones to cocoon players from the unworthy masses.

Players aren’t schooled to spout cliches or meaningless gibberish. They are treated as adults, trusted to speak freely. They genuinely engage with supporters and the media, skills that have been lost to the top flight drones. As a result, those lads come across as human beings, with concerns beyond winning sponsorship deals and buying Bentleys.

This is the essence of Bournemouth; in an era when anodyne ‘brand identity’ has sapped the colour out of football, they are real and vibrant.

Brian Clough told Don Revie he seized control of Leeds because he wanted to “win better”. Now Howe and Bournemouth can show the Luddites, dinosaurs and marketing men how to win better. So please, don’t go changing.We love you just the way you are.