After securing its highest position — ninth — and biggest points tally — 56 — in Premier League history last season, Bournemouth appeared to pay the price for overperformance.

Its players attracted the attention of Europe’s heavy-hitters, and the club lost almost its entire first-choice back-line — centre-backs Dean Huijsen (Real Madrid) and Illia Zabarnyi (PSG), left-back Milos Kerkez (Liverpool) and goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga (Arsenal) — in the summer. The reasonable expectation was that the Cherries would struggle this season.

Sitting pretty

And yet, ahead of Sunday’s trip to Manchester City, Bournemouth (18 points) sits in second place after nine rounds of fixtures. With five wins, three draws and one defeat, it has two more points than City and three more points than Liverpool.

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