After halting our run of three straight defeats with a largely drab – and slightly fortuitous - 1-1 draw against West Bromich Albion at Dean Court this weekend, most AFC Bournemouth fans (myself included) are now looking ahead to the challenges that might await us next season.

This weekend’s match gave us a fair few indicators of the problems that might lie ahead for instance. It’s obviously been a fantastic season overall considering the injuries we’ve suffered and the lack of top flight experience in the squad, but if we really want to progress at this level I’m under no illusions that some changes need to be made.

Actually scratch that - if we even want to stay up again next season we’ll need to make some serious tweaks.

The first seventy minutes against WBA were truly terrible for instance, with little fluidity or zip in our play – there was precious little movement up top, as we passed the ball around in our half until losing it whenever we approached the final third. This happened over and over again. And then once more for good measure.

Overplaying it in our half was one of the main reasons we conceded in fact, with Artur Boruc attempting a ball into midfield that was went straight to the impressive Jonathan Leko – who subsequently started a move that ended with Salomón Rondón heading it past our despairing Polish keeper.

It’s Howe’s persistence with certain footballing ideals that slightly concerns me looking ahead too - because despite conceding so many goals this season from getting caught playing with the ball around the back we show no sign of playing any other way.

We need to understand that playing it long when the opposition have so many people advanced up the pitch pressing our back four doesn’t have to be an admission of defeat - but simply common sense.

This stubbornness also ties into Eddie Howe persisting with a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 formation regardless of the opposition – and this needs to change if we don’t want to be easy prey for the larger sides in this division.

Watching Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City, and Arsenal not even having to get into second gear to beat us was one of the most irritating aspects of this season – we all expected to suffer some tonkings of course, but it’s the fact that we’ve not looked to set up differently over and over again that’s been a concern.

So it was naïve to play this way against larger sides, but having little flexibility in terms of formation also means that we’re far too predictable and easy to set up against when we’re facing the smaller teams too – as our performance against West Bromich Albion this weekend demonstrated.

I also don’t think Howe has a firm handle of what his best starting eleven is, with his decision to start this weekend’s game with three of our best players on the bench – Josh King, Callum Wilson, and Matt Ritchie – slightly bizarre to say the least.

With this in mind we can probably expect some slight rotation at the start of next season when it comes to our attacking players in particular, with the front two and wing positions still remaining very much up for grabs (so to speak).

So to summarise, if we’re to push on and become a mid-table side in this division we’ll need some more flexibility in terms of our formation, and also have a plan B when we simply can’t break down a side.

We’ll also have to work fast to find a starting eleven that works best together. To do this we’ll almost certainly need to bring some new players in though, and also ship some out – and I’ll be looking at which ones we might need to wave goodbye to in an upcoming post, so be sure to look out for that. I can almost sense your anticipation from here.