It’s been a rare week of good news at Dean Court.
AFC Bournemouth are still in administration and joint administrator Gerald Krasner has admitted that the club is likely to start with a 15-point deduction next season.
However, all bar one of our out of contract players have committed to the club for next season and the squad for the upcoming campaign is starting to take shape.
Josh Gowling has fled the nest, moving the length of the country to stay in League One with Carlisle.
Hopefully former Arsenal trainee Ryan Garry will finally shed his injury curse next season and fill the gap left by Gowling.
Elsewhere we have lost Sam Vokes, who was snapped up on the cheap by Wolves, and Max Gradel, our loan star who had returned to his parent club Leicester.
Otherwise we have maintained all the players who did so well for us at the end of last season and narrowly missed out on survival.
With over a month to go before the 2008/9 campaign kicks off we will hopefully find room in our tight budget to make a couple more additions, with another forward and a wide player key targets.
We will have one of the best squads in the division, even if it is on the small side, and as long as we are not hit by too many injuries, we should be able to bounce back quickly from whatever points deduction is inflicted on us.
In true ‘save the best till last’ fashion it was the supporters player of the year Danny Hollands who was final player to pledge his immediate future to the Cherries.
The former Chelsea reserve team skipper was slow to make an impact at the club after being signed by Sean O’Driscoll at the start of the 2006/7 season.
But the midfielder came into his own last season, even when the team was struggling his outstanding work rate and love of a tackle shone through.
He always makes himself available and, while he is not bad on the ball, he knows his limits and will often play the simple ball when it is on.
For me his best performance last season was actually in a game we lost, away at Cheltenham in January.
Hollands was everywhere, pulling the strings as we dominated the game but poor finishing cost us as we conceding from a set piece in the dying minutes.
There must be something positive going on off the pitch at Bournemouth that is convincing players like Hollands to stay on the south coast next season despite offers from other clubs.
I hope we can get the financial issues sorted as quickly as possible but at least now I am finally looking forward to next season with some optimism and I can’t wait for us to start playing again.
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