Life with out Aké will be much harder for Cherries

Hearing that Nathan Aké will be heading back to Chelsea and not extending his loan spell with AFCB is a big blow, as Eddie Howe has rightly said. Aké took some time to force his way into the starting 11 and that could well have been the factor that caused Chelsea to decide that his time is not spent best AFCB, but I fancy that the Blues can see that he is at the stage where he could be given a few games for Chelsea now, especially with John Terry not featuring for them.

Aké will be missed on the pitch and in the dressing room and training pitch.

In a way, Nathan probably did too well on the south coast. He is now a more valuable asset for Chelsea than he was before his loan move, and while he may still not get into Chelsea's team his stock will have risen and there will be plenty of clubs that would now like to have him on their books. AFCB were certainly lucky to get him for the first half of the season, especially after the loan with Christian Atsu did not really work out that well last season. Ray Wilkins believes Nathan will be ad to leave Bournemouth as he was getting regular games and if that does not happen at the Bridge then maybe AFCB will target a bid for Aké this coming summer.

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For the Cherries it will need some reorganisation in the defence, but more than that I saw Aké as a player on the field that led by his actions. He is a very solid performer that plays the game simply and yet is also strong in the challenge and has a good appetite for scoring goals. I suppose Steve Cook is the most similar player that AFCB have to him, but they became very good as a centre-back pair and that link will be broken now.

We have seen how a lack of continuity in the team selection can cause problems in understanding on the pitch. Simon Francis will fill the gap with Aké's departure in ca couple of games time, but there is no doubt in my mind that the Cherries would be lower in the league had they not made the two loan signings of Aké and Jack Wilshere in the last window. We wait to see whether Eddie can find another player of Aké's class or he will only have Tyrone Mings and Marc Wilson to fall back on as defensive cover.