Bournemouth’s 29-goal striker Dominic Solanke is the main focus of this article on the Cherries’ Fantasy Premier League (FPL) attacking options for 2022/23.
But we’ll also be assessing the other midfielders and forwards from the south coast club following their promotion from the Championship.
We’ve asked Bournemouth supporters and Fantasy Football Scout users PaulRUK3 and FPLScofield for their input for this piece, to provide a fan’s view.
You can read up on our guide to the Cherries’ defenders here and a profile of manager Scott Parker here.
Everything you need to know about Fulham can be found via the links below:
READ MORE: What to expect from Fulham manager Marco Silva in FPL
READ MORE: Fulham’s defence assessed ahead of FPL return in 2022/23
READ MORE: What can we expect from Aleksandar Mitrovic and Fulham’s midfielders in FPL?
The stats in this piece are taken from Fotmob and WhoScored.
WHAT IS BOURNEMOUTH’S GOAL-SCORING POTENTIAL IN FPL?
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | PTS | |
| Total | 46 | 25 | 13 | 8 | 74 | 39 | +35 | 88 |
| Home | 23 | 13 | 7 | 3 | 41 | 21 | +20 | 46 |
| Away | 23 | 12 | 6 | 5 | 33 | 18 | +15 | 42 |
Bournemouth were the second-highest scorers in the Championship last season but they were significantly short of Fulham’s total of 106 goals.
Goals haven’t exactly flowed for Parker’s teams over the last few years: Fulham were only the seventh highest-scoring side when being promoted in 2019/20 and the second-lowest in the Premier League in 2020/21.
Underlying stats-wise, the Cherries attempted over 150 fewer shots than champions Fulham last season and were mostly top-four material for the key metrics below.
| 2021/22 total (rank v other Championship clubs) | |
| Goals scored | 74 (2nd) |
| Shots | 581 (4th) |
| Shots in the box | 416 (4th) |
| Shots on target | 214 (3rd) |
| Attempts from set plays | 125 (22nd) |
| Attempts on the counter-attack | 10 (=19th) |
| Expected goals (xG) | 76.5 (3rd) |
Parker’s reputation for slow-and-steady, possession-based football is underscored in the low number of shots (and, in fact, total of zero goals) from counter-attacks, something that surely will have to improve next season as they won’t see nearly as much of the ball in the Premier League.
The Cherries posed little threat from set-piece situations, too.
“I personally don’t see us being that free-scoring this year and, most likely, less free-scoring than under Eddie Howe.
“There were 14 away matches that saw two or fewer goals scored by both teams combined but we alone scored 2+ goals on 14 occasions at home. We had way more clean sheets away than at home, while over half our matches at the Vitality saw both teams score.
“So basically, we’ve been scoring more at home and been less attacking away.
“We may have to be more cautious at home in the Premier League next season, however, so we might play how we did on road last year at the Vitality. And away I think we could struggle but our blueprint will be to keep it tight.” – FPLScofield
“Solanke is key: if he carries his finishing into Premier League, then yes [we can score enough to stay up]. If we can work Kieffer Moore into the line-up, even better.” – PaulRUK3
PLAYER BY PLAYER
2021/22: APPS, GOALS AND ASSISTS
| Player | Position | Starts (Sub Apps) | Mins | Goals | Assists |
| Dominic Solanke | ST | 46 | 4096 | 29 | 7 |
| Jaidon Anthony | LW | 38(7) | 3265 | 8 | 7 |
| Philip Billing | CM | 37(3) | 3312 | 10 | 10 |
| Ryan Christie | RW | 36(2) | 3016 | 3 | 8 |
| Jamal Lowe | LW/RW/ST | 9(25) | 1103 | 7 | 2 |
| Jefferson Lerma | CM | 33(1) | 2860 | 1 | 3 |
| Lewis Cook | CM | 25(3) | 2180 | 1 | 2 |
| Ben Pearson | CM | 8(15) | 875 | – | 1 |
| Emiliano Marcondes | CM | 8(9) | 787 | 2 | 2 |
| Morgan Rogers* | LW/RW | 1(14) | 219 | 1 | – |
| Gavin Kilkenny | CM | 13(1) | 1100 | – | – |
| Siriki Dembélé | LW | 4(9) | 522 | 2 | 1 |
| Todd Cantwell* | CM | 8(3) | 641 | – | – |
| David Brooks | RW | 7 | 506 | 1 | – |
| Junior Stanislas | LW/RW | 2(5) | 179 | – | 2 |
| Robbie Brady | LW/RW | 2(4) | 191 | – | – |
| Kieffer Moore | ST | 0(4) | 83 | 4 | – |
| Christian Saydee | ST | 0(2) | 2 | – | – |
*a loanee in 2021/22, has returned to parent club
DOMINIC SOLANKE
Dominic Solanke‘s goalscoring achievements in the Championship last season were overshadowed by those of the record-breaking Aleksandar Mitrovic but the Bournemouth striker’s total of 29 second-tier strikes has only been beaten by two other players (Mitrovic and Ivan Toney) in the last nine years.
There’ll be plenty of FPL managers who will be sceptical about his ability to cut it in the top flight after his awful form on the south coast in Bournemouth’s relegation year: it took him 39 games to end his goalless drought after making the move from Liverpool in January 2019.
Backers of the £20m striker will point to the fact that he was still a young man, only 22, when the Cherries dropped to the Championship, and he did at least finish 2019/20 with three goals in as many starts.
There’s no doubt that his relationship with Parker has helped improve him as a player, with the Bournemouth manager repeatedly lavishing (occasionally hyperbolic) praise on his ever-present forward over the last 12 months.
“He’s a Premier League centre-forward. I’m glad that he’s going to be playing Premier League football with us because that’s where I believe he deserves to be playing.” – Scott Parker on Dominic Solanke
As for his playing style, he has earned the inevitable comparisons with Harry Kane: while he’s adept at popping up close to goal, a lot of his work involves dropping deep to knit play together or ease pressure on his team.
“Solanke continues to serve a seamless coalescence between being Scott Parker’s safety blanket – robust, consistent, his goals settling the team down – and the catalyst: pressing from the front, vertical dribbling and his goals sparking the team into life.
“His role under Parker is all-encompassing. He is the creative hub of the team, as shown by recent away performances, where he’s played as a traditional number 10 while also remaining the sole finisher. He single-handedly acts as the side’s main form of respite too, alleviating tension through delivering in the biggest, most critical moments. Phillip Billing in vintage form offers similar but to a less regular extent.” – Jacob Tanswell, Dorset Live
Mitrovic wins out on not just the goals scored front but also when it comes to underlying stats in a comparison of the two, and we’ll probably see that reflected in the starting FPL prices next season.
| Player | Mins per shot | Mins per shot on target | Mins per shot in the box | Mins per xG | Shot conversion (Goals to shots) | Shot accuracy (Attempts on target to shots) | Mins per chance created |
| Dominic Solanke | 25 | 67.1 | 27.5 | 126 | 17.7% | 37.1% | 91 |
| Aleksandar Mitrovic | 19.4 | 41.7 | 22.6 | 106.9 | 21.7% | 46.5% | 81.6 |
The plus points are that Solanke has been a nailed starter under Parker to date, is on penalties (he converted four of the five spot-kicks he took in 2021/22) and is something of a talisman, having played a direct part in just under 50% of the goals that the Cherries scored in their promotion-winning campaign – and that’s without looking at ‘Fantasy assists’ for things like shot rebounds.
For a player whose game involves dropping into deeper positions, all 29 of his league goals came from inside the opposition area, with the vast majority being close-range strikes:
“Solanke will probably be cheaper on the scale of strikers and is the focal point for all our attacks so there might be value in his goals/cost ratio.
“He might be worth putting on the bench for the start of the season. Solanke didn’t do well in the Premier League when being sold by Liverpool to us for an extortionate price (at the time) but has been pure gold this season. We can only hope that he goes against the grain of Championship superstars not carrying it over to the Premier League.” – PaulRUK3
KIEFFER MOORE
A forward who made only four appearances, all of them as a substitute, wouldn’t usually command this many column inches.
But Kieffer Moore‘s contribution to Bournemouth’s promotion-winning campaign at the end of the season was a significant one and there were reasons for his limited game-time.
The Wales international was a winter transfer window signing from Cardiff City but broke his foot minutes into his debut, only returning in April.
The well-travelled 29-year-old delivered four goals in his final three substitute appearances of the season, including the goal that sealed promotion against Nottingham Forest.
He never replaced Solanke when being introduced, instead being deployed up top with Bournemouth’s top goalscorer dropping into the number 10 spot.
An impact substitute role beckons at the start of 2022/23 but he will almost certainly be priced cheaper than Solanke, so will be one for the longer-term watchlist. Should Parker change formation to a wing-back system, as he did when Fulham were promoted two years ago, then there would be the option of fielding two forwards up front in a 3-5-2, albeit sacrificing width in the process.
“The thing to be aware of is Kieffer Moore’s minutes in pre-season. He did so well at the end of last year and will fight for a place alongside or even at the expense of Solanke. Solanke will all but certainly start the season as first choice, though.” – FPLScofield
“Kieffer Moore is definitely one to watch and was instrumental in keeping us out of the play-offs on his return from injury, having broken his foot three minutes in to his debut in February!” – PaulRUK3
THE WINGERS
Jaidon Anthony and Ryan Christie were starters more often than not in the two wide positions, registering a respectable 15 and 11 attacking returns respectively last season.
You’re never quite sure how that will translate into Premier League form: plucking two examples out from Parker’s last promotion-winning side, Ivan Caveleiro and Tom Cairney posted similar goal and assist numbers in the second tier before flopping on the step up. There are myriad midfield instances of this from down the years, although you do get the occasional Charlie Adam.
“Generally we’ve gone with a 4-3-3 in attack. The midfield three is led by Billing, who plays off the striker. The wingers get high up the pitch with Christie being the provider on the right and Anthony sometimes tucking in with more of a goal threat. The other two midfielders are fairly defensive and will offer little to nothing in attacking FPL returns.” – FPLScofield
Anthony and Christie were both responsible for free-kicks and corners last season but, as we mentioned in the introduction, Bournemouth had a poor record at dead-ball situations.
Anthony’s tally of 18 big chances created, according to Fotmob, was beaten by only one other player in the Championship but the shot/chance creation averages otherwise weren’t too eye-catching:
| Player | Mins per shot | Mins per shot on target | Mins per shot in the box | Mins per chance created |
| Kieffer Moore | 13.8 | 16.6 | 16.6 | 83 |
| Dominic Solanke | 25 | 67.1 | 27.5 | 91 |
| Junior Stanislas | 35.8 | 59.7 | 179 | 25.6 |
| Jamal Lowe | 40.9 | 78.8 | 46 | 100.3 |
| Ryan Christie | 41.9 | 100.5 | 73.6 | 53.9 |
| Emiliano Marcondes | 43.7 | 98.4 | 71.5 | 30.3 |
| Philip Billing | 48.7 | 150.5 | 70.5 | 77 |
| Jaidon Anthony | 53.5 | 142 | 85.9 | 46 |
| David Brooks | 56.2 | 168.7 | 84.3 | 126.5 |
| Siriki Dembélé | 74.6 | 174 | 104.4 | 32.6 |
| Jefferson Lerma | 77.3 | 357.5 | 102.1 | 98.6 |
| Lewis Cook | 155.7 | 726.7 | 726.7 | 109 |
| Gavin Kilkenny | 157.1 | 550 | – | 137.5 |
| Robbie Brady | 191 | – | 191 | 63.7 |
Above: Key attacking stats for Bournemouth midfielders in 2021/22. Forwards Kieffer Moore and Dominic Solanke are included for comparison in italics, while names in bold were regular starters last season.
To provide some context, Pascal Gross and Christian Eriksen, two set-piece-taking budget midfielders, had a chance creation rate of better than once every 35 minutes last season.
The similarly cut-price Bryan Mbeumo, Maxwel Cornet and Pedro Neto averaged a shot in the box roughly once every 50 minutes, meanwhile.
And, of course, these figures were delivered at a higher level.
Elsewhere at Bournemouth, left-sided deputy Siriki Dembele, the injury-prone Robbie Brady and the versatile Jamal Lowe were back-up wingers for much of the campaign, failing to make double figures for starts.
That was also true of Junior Stanislas and David Brooks but injury and illness had a big say in that.
The hapless Stanislas was hit by a raft of fitness issues in 2021/22, culminating in a slipped disc in April. Brooks, meanwhile, had a far more serious battle against lymphoma, from which he has now thankfully been given the all-clear.
But the pair have pedigree when available for selection, both hitting 10+ Championship attacking returns in 2020/21 despite starting fewer than 30 matches each.
Stanislas’s averages for shots and chances created in the above table were also better than many of his teammates in the season just gone, albeit from a small sample size.
And we have even seen Stanislas and Brooks doing the business before in FPL, hitting double figures for attacking returns in 2016/17 and 2018/19 respectively.
PHILIP BILLING
It’s not quite ‘forget all you know’ about the Denmark international but he’s a darn sight more attacking than he was when we last saw him in the top flight.
Billing registered a grand total of four attacking returns across three Premier League seasons with Huddersfield Town and Bournemouth but has since been reinvented as an offensive-minded ‘number eight’, frequently being the player closest to Solanke in the Cherries’ attack. No more so was this evident than in the win over Blackburn Rovers at the back-end of April, when Billing played a part in all three goals.
Ten goals and as many assists were supplied by the Dane in 2021/22. No other Bournemouth player set up as many of his side’s strikes.
A total of eight shots in the six-yard box was also the second-most in the Bournemouth squad, behind only Solanke.
Outside of the three players that played up front last season (Moore, Solanke and, occasionally, Lowe), Billing was the Cherries player with the best rate of shots in the penalty area (one every 70.5 minutes). That’s not a particularly strong average when we look at FPL midfielders, however; more Moi Elyounoussi (71.8) than Diogo Jota (30.4).
One other downside is that he’s prone to picking up a booking: 13 cautions arrived for Billing in 2021/22, the fourth-highest tally in the division.
CENTRAL/DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDERS
Everyone in this category will probably be a Fantasy footnote in 2022/23.
Jefferson Lerma is a name familiar to FPL managers for all the wrong reasons, having previously racked up 23 bookings in just 63 Premier League appearances. His ability to pick up cards remains an unwanted strength, with two sendings off accompanying eight cautions in 2021/22.
The Colombian played a bit further forwards as a ‘number eight’ on numerous occasions under Parker last season but only one goal arrived from the midfield spoiler, who looks destined for a £4.5m-£5.0m price tag again.
Lewis Cook was the man often playing as the ‘number six’ when Lerma was pushed a bit forwards: the England one-cap wonder is a deep-lying playmaker, tempo-dictator and another midfield asset who will mostly dodge attacking returns.
A number of the other central midfielders in Parker’s squad might not be even at the club next season.
Local media outlet Dorset Live suggest that the club will listen to offers for Emiliano Marcondes and Ben Pearson, while youngster Gavin Kilkenny is set for a move away on loan. All three players were predominantly back-up options in the middle of the park last season; if anything changes in that regard in pre-season, as it did with John Lundstram three years ago, we’ll revisit their cases.
Loanee Todd Cantwell has gone back to Norwich, meanwhile, with the Cherries not taking up their option of signing him on a permanent deal after an unremarkable temporary stay on the south coast.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Solanke is obviously the stand-out pick from the Bournemouth attack but there’ll be understandable reservations about both team and player.
Parker hasn’t exactly delivered free-scoring, free-flowing attacking football at Fulham or Bournemouth, with the Cottagers’ tally of nine home goals in 2020/21 the lowest in top-flight history.
Solanke will have his detractors, too, and the onus is very much on him to prove that his struggles in the Premier League last time around are a thing of the past. We’re almost in Patrick Bamford territory all over again, as the Leeds striker came up from the Championship in 2019/20 with a poor top flight-record, not to mention a reputation for wasting big chances.
Bamford’s case will be an inspiration to Solanke and, in actual fact, there are some reasonable recent success stories among the strikers who scored 25+ goals in the second tier and played in the Premier League the very next year.
Mitrovic (under Parker!) and Adam Armstrong, who soon dropped out of the starting XI at their respective clubs, were notable exceptions:
| Player | Goals scored in Championship | Goals scored in Premier League |
| Ivan Toney | 31 (2020/21) | 12 (2021/22) |
| Adam Armstrong | 28 (2020/21) | 2 (2021/22) |
| Teemu Pukki | 26 (2020/21) | 11 (2021/22) |
| Aleksandar Mitrovic | 26 (2019/20) | 3 (2020/21) |
| Ollie Watkins | 25 (2019/20) | 14 (2020/21) |
| Teemu Pukki | 29 (2018/19) | 11 (2019/20) |
| Tammy Abraham | 25 (2018/19) | 15 (2019/20) |
| Neal Maupay | 25 (2018/19) | 10 (2019/20) |
| Chris Wood | 27 (2016/17) | 10 (2017/18) |
Price will of course largely dictate how appealing Solanke is. £5.5m is the absolute best we can hope for, and he’d be a popular third forward at that tier, but £6.0m is probably a more realistic estimate. The starting prices of the big hitters, like Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Erling Haaland and Reece James, will also dictate how much cash we can spend elsewhere; will £6.0m even be too expensive for a second/third forward in 2022/23?
A reinvented Billing is a name to monitor as a budget fifth midfielder, if FPL get careless and list him at £5.0m based on his previous Premier League output. They’re probably too savvy to make any more gaffes after Lundstram-gate, however, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Dane at a more off-putting £5.5m.
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