Ryan CHRISTIE (Scotland)
The Bournemouth midfielder is living proof you can teach an old dog new tricks. Before this season, the 29-year-old from the Scottish Highlands had made his name as a cultured, inventive playmaker or occasionally an inverted winger. However, all that was to change last summer when new Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola laid out his plans to use Christie in a box-to-box role at the Vitality Stadium.
Ostensibly, it seemed a strange call. But what a success the Scotland international, fast approaching 50 caps, has made of his revised brief. While the classy touches, eagle-eyed vision and eye for goal remain, the former Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Aberdeen and Celtic star has transformed himself into a Marathon Man in the middle of the park, full of energy, commitment and pressing intensity. Turnovers are one of the most valuable of commodities in the modern game and in the reimagined Christie, Bournemouth have unearthed a genuine specialist, one of the best in the Premier League in harrying, intercepting and closing off passing lanes.
Despite appearing in all eight of Scotland’s Euro 2024 qualifiers, he only started in four and he has yet to feature for his country as a midfield dynamo, with all four of those starts coming as a wide midfielder-slash-forward. With Scotland struggling for form and confidence of late – losing five games and drawing two after beating Cyprus last September – and with fellow midfielder Lewis Ferguson ruled out of the tournament with a season-ending ACL injury, manager Steve Clarke must be tempted to give Christie an extended run in the side.
Besides the midfielder’s heart of a lion, hard running and desire, he is so strong on the ball, very comfortable picking it up from his defence and creating chances from a deeper position – arguably even more than he ever did when stationed further forward. He has become a completely different player. Time for Scotland to use Christie 2.0.
Joachim ANDERSEN (Denmark)
The classy Crystal Palace defender is a typically fearsome Scandinavian centre-back: muscular, strong, never one to shirk a challenge and aerially dominant. An added bonus is the 28-year-old’s outstanding distribution, not least his eye-catching cross-field diagonal passes.
Nedim BAJRAMI (Albania)
After representing Switzerland, his country of birth, in every category from the U15s to the U21s, the cultured attacking midfielder plumped, in 2021, to throw in his lot with Albania, the land of his parents. He has since become absolutely integral to the Eagles’ attack.
Jeremy DOKU (Belgium)
His self-confidence boosted by a highly satisfactory first season in the Premier League with Manchester City, the former Rennes left-winger is very much revelling in his new status as one of Belgium’s go-to players. Since moving to England in a £55.4m deal last August, the 22-year-old has added a touch more thought and all-round effectiveness to his stellar ball-skills and elusiveness, paving the way for an automatic spot in the plans of Diables Rouges coach Domenico Tedesco. While Romelu Lukaku voraciously hammers in the goals at the point of the attack, Doku effectively is the maverick with a drill, punching holes in the opposition rearguard with his quick changes of direction and stop-go qualities.
When he signed for City, some pundits claimed he was too mercurial to ever become a “system” player in Pep Guardiola’s Sky Blue machine. The naysayers were wrong, however. Given plenty of freedom to delve into his dribbling bag of tricks, Doku has swiftly emerged as a potent weapon for City, especially dangerous in the havoc-wreaking role of impact substitute. “He’s surprised us,” declared Guardiola. “He reads each action well and knows what he has to do and makes the right decisions. It would be hard to find a better dribbler in reduced spaces. Over the first five metres, he is one of the quickest.”
Arthur Theate, the Belgium defender who knows Doku well from their days together at Ligue1 Rennes, describes his old team-mate as “almost impossible to defend against” and few would disagree. “He’s unique in the world,” added Theate. “You can try to slow him up, but it’s really difficult to take the ball away from him.”
