Bournemouth owner Bill Foley says the club are ‘convinced’ they remain the ‘right place’ for Alex Scott, even though the midfielder may have ‘stars in his eyes’ amid interest from Chelsea and Manchester City.
Scott has established himself as one of the most sought-after midfielders in Premier League football since swapping Bristol City for Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium back in 2023.
In that time, Scott has gone from strength to strength at the heart of the Cherries’ midfield and the 23-year-old was perhaps unfortunate to miss out on a place in Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad in the summer.
However, Scott was recalled by Tuchel last month and went on to make his debut as a second-half substitute in the Three Lions’ Nations League victory over the Czech Republic in Prague.
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He was then given the nod from the start in England’s thumping 7-0 defeat of Croatia, producing an outstanding performance in Tuchel’s engine room alongside Elliot Anderson in Rijeka.
But while Scott’s stock has soared in months, bad news followed England’s win as it was confirmed that the Bournemouth man could be sidelined for up to eight weeks due to a thigh injury.
Scott’s absence has not put an end to speculation over his future, though, with recent reports indicating that Bournemouth could be prepared to consider offers in excess of £80million for their prized possession this winter.
Addressing these rumours during a wide-ranging interview with talkSPORT’s Alex Crook, Bournemouth owner Foley replied: ‘I don’t want to sell anyone at any time, anywhere. I have to defer to Tiago [Pinto], my President of Football, and he comes to me with his ideas and his plans.
‘At this point, we’re convinced that we’re the right place for Alex to be, for Alex to stay, and we’ll keep on addressing contract issues with Alex as we move through this year.
‘We’d love to have Alex stay here, sign a new contract and be part of this team for the long haul, and we’re still working on it. We haven’t given up.
‘But sometimes players get stars in their eyes and they think that Chelsea is the right place to go or Manchester City.’
Bournemouth agreed to sell Antoine Semenyo to City midway through last season, with the two clubs shaking hands on a fee in the region of £65m for the forward.
‘I hated to lose Semenyo, what a great guy he was,’ Foley said of the move.
‘But to show you his [Semenyo] character, he didn’t have to play those last two games with us. He stayed, he played and he scored a winning goal in the very last game.
‘We believe that if we keep on providing an infrastructure, a common thread of leadership across this team, then we’ll start keeping more and more players.
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‘People will be surprised about that and they’ll be able to earn substantial wages here because we’re close, we’re very close.’
Foley understands and is accepting of the fact that Bournemouth are a team that attracts young players who may have ambitions to move on to bigger and better things down the line.
The American billionaire is, though, adamant that the Cherries are ‘close’ to becoming a club capable of ‘retain key talent’ such as Scott and Semenyo.
‘We have to respect the fact that a lot of our players are younger and they’ve come to Bournemouth on the expectation that they’ll get time to play and then perhaps move onto a bigger team,’ he added.
‘We recognise that. Tiago’s job and my job are really the same and that’s to make players feel comfortable and provide them with the infrastructure they need to understand we’re serious about what we’re doing.
‘We’re happy with where we are and we believe we’ll keep making progress in terms of retaining key talent. It may not be this year, it may not be next year, in terms of everyone, but we’re close.
‘We have to prove to the players that this is a place they want to be, they want to stay and they don’t want to move on. That’s the way to really build a successful team.’
Asked whether offering players wages of £100,000-a-week could soon be ‘commonplace’ at Bournemouth, Foley responded: ‘I think earning that kind of numbers at Bournemouth should be commonplace and we should be prepared to meet that challenge.
‘Part of it is ensuring we have our hospitality in the right spot, ensuring we have the right sponsorship and ticketing, so that’s why we need more people in the stands, more people coming to the game early, staying longer, staying after the game.
‘That’s all part of our plan in terms of developing fan zones and more activities to keep people more consistently here at the stadium. That’s the way we have the cashflow to really maintain what we’ve already started.
‘We’ve got a long way to go. We’re not nearly finished at this point.’
Bournemouth have endured a tough start to the new campaign and sit 15th in the Premier League table having picked up just one one from their opening seven matches under Marco Rose.
However, with the addition of ‘one or two key players’ in January, Foley is confident the Cherries can see out a ‘successful’ second half of the season.
‘I’m going to meet with Tiago [Pinto] after our team photo today and we’re going to start talking about the January transfer window, looking at our needs,’ Foley explained.
‘I think we all know what our needs may be and where we need to go. We have a very good team and we’re happy with the team.
‘But if we can supplement it this January with one or two other key players and we keep on developing the players we have, we’ll have a very successful second half of the season and I’m actually very, very confident about that.’
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