It was fascinating to hear Eddie Howe’s thoughts on our summer plans and efforts to retain our best players during his most recent pre-match news conference.
His message was straightforward and unambiguous, asking our Saudi-backed owners to demonstrate ambition this summer, thinking that their ambitions and the direction of this project for the “foreseeable future” will have a significant impact on Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak.
Howe believes that we must “continue to grow” and “push forward” as a football club this summer, regardless of whether we qualify for Europe.
“Seeing players linked to other clubs means nothing. We need to continue to build the club in a variety of ways. Europe would assist (qualify for the Europa League) to some extent, but I do not believe it would be the deciding factor. The decision is always up to the athlete and the club.
“A lot will rely on our goals and where the team is headed in the near future. I don’t believe one season necessarily dictates that. I believe it is the overall feeling of where the club is going.
“As a football club, we need to keep pushing forward, which I know everyone wants to do. However, you establish your goals by deeds rather than words. So we need to show to them that we are a club moving forward.”
Howe also mentioned recent reports associating Bruno and Isak with departures, as well as what will be a “difficult summer” as we seek to improve our first team once more.
“Who knows what the future holds? But, for our part, we must endeavor to make the player feel at home and happy, as well as develop them, their professions, and their talents, with the hope that this will be enough to keep them here for a long time.
“This is going to be a challenging summer. Not to say what positions we want to improve, since I have an idea where I want to take the team, but there are a lot of unknown things heading into the summer, so it’s going to be fairly challenging to prepare for what’s going to happen.”
