Nobody doubts the quality of Nathan Aké. He is in most fans' opinions AFCB's best defender. I have no problem with that, but he needs to set himself a much higher standard. He needs to model himself on the best defenders in Europe like Virgil van Dijk, and should want to be a leader who commands AFCB's defence to truly reach his potential.
It has been a strange season in that Aké has also played in midfield and left back because of injuries to team-mates. The changes in position are something that he can't control, but for Bournemouth to be improving I feel the team needs Aké to be the dominant centre-back. He has been in the team for long enough now to start to exert a bit more authority in the way he plays, because he is better on the ball than AFCB's other defenders.
I was told that Virgil van Dijk went to the Champions League Final a few years ago, when he was still playing at Southampton, just to watch Sergio Ramos to see how good he was live. Nathan needs to look at what makes players like van Dijk get the top awards and if he can set himself on a similar course he will start to see his own performances differently. AFCB need to get the best out of their best players and while Aké can be content to see AFCB stay up and have one of the worst three defences in the Premier League, Eddie Howe should be asking more of his top defender to take the lead and start taking more of a personal responsibility to ensure AFCB are defending as well as they can.
Aké is going to be a main pillar of AFCB's defence. It is expected that Steve Cook is his best partner, but if these two cannot work out a way to reduce the amount of goals against, perhaps AFCB need to rethink who is making the decision where to hold the line on the pitch and whether Aké is even being held back in the system AFCB play. I say that because Aké could be AFCB's van Dijk, but he's just not at that level yet.
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| Can Aké become an AFCB legend? |
While there has been talk of several clubs being interested in Nathan Aké, I don't believe the top six will be that keen to pick up Aké at the moment when he is part of a defence that conceded 70 goals. Only Fulham and Huddersfield let in more goals and it has to be questioned how good Aké really is if he is playing in all 38 games.
It has been a strange season in that Aké has also played in midfield and left back because of injuries to team-mates. The changes in position are something that he can't control, but for Bournemouth to be improving I feel the team needs Aké to be the dominant centre-back. He has been in the team for long enough now to start to exert a bit more authority in the way he plays, because he is better on the ball than AFCB's other defenders.
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Aké is going to be a main pillar of AFCB's defence. It is expected that Steve Cook is his best partner, but if these two cannot work out a way to reduce the amount of goals against, perhaps AFCB need to rethink who is making the decision where to hold the line on the pitch and whether Aké is even being held back in the system AFCB play. I say that because Aké could be AFCB's van Dijk, but he's just not at that level yet.
Ake is brilliant at reading the game and has great tackling skills. His abilities when on the ball are undoubted. However he rather lacks the height and physicle strength when making arial challenges to be compared with Van Dijk.
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