Bournemouth show Villa how to challenge ‘food chain’ without having to sue Jamie Carragher
An indulgent peek behind the sordid, shabby content curtain: when ranking the top 20 clubs in football’s food chain, primarily to underline the sheer lack of Newcastle while also making sure to be biased against your club specifically, one inclusion evoked the most internal contention.
‘Maybe I’m old (definitely) and still drunk on Football Italia,’ said one dissenter, ‘but if Milan or Bournemouth are in for me, I’m walking to Milan. Same for Juventus too.’
Michele Di Gregorio swapped a Turin bench for one on the south coast a month later, while Bournemouth walked all over Milan soon after in the most famous result in their history.
Some of that July hierarchy has aged like milk – Manchester United in 7th (but still well above Aston Villa) and Brighton omitted completely feel like the most egregious errors – yet Bournemouth had merited their spot among the elite, albeit as a gem polisher for the establishment.
They have become an oxymoronic stepping stone destination club: one sold to players and agents as a three-year finishing school, but with legitimate and stated aspirations to become so much more, possibly even without suing Jamie Carragher in the process.
And in Bill Foley they have an owner – an American businessman, no less – with a knack for delivering on his vision.
“I want this team to play in Europe,” he said in May 2023, months after his takeover was completed. “Our ultimate goal is not to worry about avoiding relegation but to move way up the table.”
Bournemouth were three points above the drop zone and in the midst of the first managerial post of Gary O’Neil’s career when Foley came in; in four consecutive seasons since, they have finished incrementally higher and with a better points total than the previous campaign: 15th on 39 points in 2022/23 became 12th on 48, then 9th on 56, and finally 6th on 57 in 2025/26.
Having been Careful What You Wish For’d at the start of that run when ruthlessly but justifiably replacing O’Neil with Andoni Iraola to instigate their rise as a respected Premier League force, there is no reason for Bournemouth to accept any ceilings placed on their progress now.
They are far from the whipping boys of the feared killer Bs.
Foley outlined his two main ambitions last month: to win a major trophy and to qualify for the Champions League. As one of the Europa League favourites with a perfect continental record, they might tick both off in one go in Frankfurt next May.
Then comes the grandest objective of all: “We have to prove to the players this is a place they want to be and that they want to stay and they don’t want to move on because that’s the way we really build a successful team.”
It’s a notion as admirable as it is fanciful. As Carragher reminded the litigious Villa, “there is a chain in football, whether you like it or not”. The way Bournemouth have climbed it is remarkable, the consequence of nailing a series of decisions on recruitment and infrastructure.
The hope is that they don’t lose their way completely like one of the former reigning Really Well-Run clubs like Southampton. But the brilliance of the succession plan from Iraola to Marco Rose, and the on-pitch transition from Dominic Solanke to Evanilson or, more recently, Marcos Senesi to Antonio Silva, suggests Bournemouth have cracked the code for now.
That can and does suddenly change. One bad decision and you’re in the Championship having to listen to two Russell Martin press conferences a week.
But that would still represent success relative to 17-point deductions in League Two. And with a couple of potential nine-figure players in Eli Junior Kroupi and Alex Scott, both of whom have played little to no part of their recent impressive run, there is no apparent bust in an exclusively boom cycle.
Bournemouth might not win the Europa League. They may even concede a goal again at some point, as absurd as that sounds. But they will continue to refuse and challenge the accepted pecking order like few other clubs can.
