Bournemouth's Eddie Howe not yet ready to take on Arsenal job

Bournemouth's Eddie Howe not yet ready to take on Arsenal job

As he so often does, Arsene Wenger faces the future on Sunday when he comes up against Bournemouth. Arsenal's fixture lists in recent years have been pockmarked by meetings with men tipped to be his successor, whether it is Owen Coyle, Roberto Martinez or Jurgen Klopp. The Emirates Stadium faithful may be grateful that such predictions about the Scot and the Spaniard never came true and, though some may yearn for the German, he is contracted to Liverpool until 2022.

So Bournemouth's Eddie Howe has, without necessarily wanting to, assumed the mantle of the next Arsenal manager. Named the Football League's manager of the decade, he is the bookmakers' favourite to replace Arsenal's veteran of the past two decades.

The 38-year-old plays a brand of passing football that could make him seem a natural fit. He offers the prospect of loyalty and longevity, two of Wenger's greatest attributes. He has identified and championed young talent such as Jordon Ibe, and displayed an ability to make his clubs money in the transfer market -- most notably Danny Ings and Matt Ritchie. He has even found a way of playing Jack Wilshere regularly (albeit while the midfielder is on loan).

Howe has been a transformative force. He inherited a club sitting 91st in English football when he first took over at Bournemouth; they now stand 10th. None of his peers have provided such exponential improvement, partly because most did not start at such lowly levels. Factor in a clean-cut image, a capacity to talk reasonably and eloquently while clearly motivating and coaching players to achieve more than they have done elsewhere and it could all put Howe in pole position.

It is undeniable that he has done a superb job at Bournemouth and hard to imagine that anyone else would have done better in the same circumstances. Yet the reality is that it is Bournemouth, a small club who often escape scrutiny, that can hide the problems in his candidacy.

When underdogs excel, it tends to be when the odds are stacked against them financially. Not Bournemouth, whose spending has been bigger than is often acknowledged. They were fined £7.6 million for breaching the Football League's Financial Fair Play rules during their 2014-15 promotion season, when they posted a loss of £38.3m. Their wage bill amounted to 235 percent of their turnover. It was scarcely a case of Wengernomics -- of living within their means in shareholder-pleasing fashion.

Then consider their transfer business. Some of it, undeniably, is brilliant. Harry Arter was a £4,000 signing from non-league Woking who has become an accomplished Premier League midfielder. The defiantly unglamorous Steve Cook cost £150,000 and has proved he is worth his place in the world's most glamorous league. Simon Francis was a League One stalwart who now captains a Premier League club. Andrew Surman came for an undisclosed fee and ran most miles in the top flight last season. Callum Wilson's pricetag may have only been £3m but he powered Bournemouth to promotion with 23 goals and has made a mark at the higher level.

But amid the bargain hunting are examples of strange signings and waste. Howe was unfortunate that Tyrone Mings, an £8m buy in 2015, was struck down by injury. Yet with Charlie Daniels proving a revelation at left-back, it was strange to spend a further £6m on Brad Smith -- who has not played a minute of Premier League football. The £7m acquisition Lewis Cook has only played 81 minutes, the £5.4m Lys Moussett only 14. They are 19 and 20 respectively, so their time could come, but £7m went on Lewis Grabban, who has scored one goal in 21 games since returning to the Vitality Stadium, while £10 million Benik Afobe has done better, but only to the tune of four in 25.

The experienced duo of Glenn Murray and Lee Tomlin came last summer for a combined £7.5m, much of which will never be recouped, and mustered only four goals between them. The second-string side that lost to Preston in the EFL Cup cost around £50m. Perhaps it is not quite the fairytale it seems. Perhaps Howe's record is sufficiently mixed to say he can be both canny buyer and spendthrift.

If Bournemouth sometimes pay over the odds, it is because they invariably buy from the British market. That may not serve as a qualification to manage Arsenal's more cosmopolitan squad. Howe would be utterly untried at a key part of the job. Apart from former club record buy Tokelo Rantie, who made a negligible impact after costing around £2.5m, he has rarely scouted abroad.

Perhaps more significantly, there is a glass ceiling for teams who are overwhelmingly English: it used to be around fifth place. Now it may be nearer 10th. Given the shortage of high-class locals and the numbers of them owned by the elite clubs, it is hard to get higher without at least half the side being comprised of foreign talent these days.

Howe has fielded up to nine English players in his starting XI this season. The appeal of such a move stretches beyond traditionalists and the more parochial. He has shown players from the lower leagues can perform in the Premier League in the right environment, yet ultimately that is not a qualification to take over at the Emirates Stadium as much as a reason for the FA to pursue him in the future.

Howe would be an imperfect fit as Arsenal manager and a much better one for England. There are more reasons to anoint him Gareth Southgate's eventual replacement than Wenger's.

source by  http://www.espn.in/football/