Andoni Iraola indicated how he plans to use a summer signing for Bournemouth.
Eli Junior Kroupi helped Lorient return to Ligue 1 with 22 goals in 30 second division fixtures for his boyhood club. He earned a move to the Cherries, scoring off the bench in a 2-2 draw with Leeds United before marking his first Premier League start with a brace in a 3-3 draw at Crystal Palace.
The French forward is an exciting prospect who is set for more minutes after the injury to Evanilson. However, the head coach wants him to enjoy his football first and foremost as a developing teenager.
“He’s always had very good relationship with the goal. It’s about what else he needs to establish himself in the Premier League. We are asking him a lot. It’s a big jump coming from France, second division, to play significant minutes in the Premier League. He has to do this adaptation process.
“It’s his first start in the Premier League. You score two goals, it’s a shame for him, I suppose, and for everyone that we could not finish it with a win, that we could almost feel it and touch it. But he has been training normally, and he knows he has to continue pushing because, like for everyone else, it’s not easy to have the minutes, have the starts, and it’s good that we have this internal competition.
“I think he has to be a teenager. He is a teenager and I think he plays football like he plays with his friends, I would say. He enjoys playing football. You can see players that even when we are not training, if there is a ball there, he will go and touch the ball and will try to do something.
“And he enjoys playing, I think. And now he has to understand the high competition. What are the requirements? It’s not just on the ball, it’s a lot of things. And he’s improving a lot in those areas.
“He comes from a team where he scored a lot of goals. It’s difficult to have this level in the Premier League, so he has to add more things to his game. We are trying to help him in this process of understanding all the things that we need for him to do so he can be competitive.
“I think strikers, especially this kind of striker, they smell the danger. The second balls, they go for every rebound. If the shot touches the post, they will be there just in case. Because in this situation, you have to go 100 times just for one goal, because one is there, the ball.
“You have to go to the second post, like the other day, 100 times just to score one, but if you never go, you don’t score. So I think he smells these things and this is difficult to coach, as you said. And we have to try to take benefit of this instinct that he has.”
