The Premier League will be better for Brooks’ return…

David Brooks has been missing from the Premier League since July. At the time of football’s suspension in England, Brooks was on the verge of a comeback from an injury which, so far, has required two separate operations. He damaged his ankle ligaments during a friendly against Brentford almost 11 months ago and his recovery has been anything but routine.

For Brooks, the hardest days are now likely over. He returned to training just as the league was shutting down and, while he probably won’t be back in time for its resumption next month, he should not be too far away. Eddie Howe will need that to be the case, too, because he’s someone upon whom they’re already heavily dependent.

In person, Brooks is very slight. When he passes through a mixed zone, you do wonder how he’s able to survive within a midfield. It’s his legs. I know that’s a funny thing to notice, but they’re so slender. He should just snap. He should never be able to survive a tackle.

That was one of the details taken from his competitive debut, against Cardiff City in August 2018. That Cardiff team was massive. Neil Warnock built them that way to compensate for their deficiencies and, amongst them, Brooks looked like a child. But that was a comparison which might have been made in all sorts of other fixtures, too. Imagine Brooks against Nemanja Matic, for instance. Or even just against a moderately broad holding midfielder like Eric Dier or Oriol Romeu.

Despite that, he had an excellent first season. The highlight was probably his performance against Chelsea in that bizarre-but-brilliant 4-0 win at Dean Court, but there were all sorts of little highlights. Some were recorded as tangible statistics, many were not – and it’s within those lost moments that his importance to Howe and Bournemouth resides.

Brooks is such a patient player. He’s got a quick mind and, when necessary, quick feet too, but there’s a deliberate quality to his football. His passes are weighted really nicely, and directed with a smart purpose. He can also disguise them well and, seemingly like all really left-footed playmakers, has an outside-of-the-foot prod which he can use to find space and create chances. See the goal he made for Josh King up at Huddersfield last season or the way –  in non-final third situations – he’ll drag a couple of defenders in one direction, before pushing a pass out and releasing a teammate in another.

Most importantly, he has a tranche of abilities which separate him from the rest of Howe’s squad. Bournemouth are built to break forward, at least in their attacking departments. Their forwards have been assembled to cover as much ground as they can as quickly as possible, make good decisions, and then exploit either the resulting space or a numerical mismatch. They have other avenues to goal – their set-piece design is actually really creative – but within open play they don’t have a lot of variety.

It makes Brooks more important; he has a foot in both camps. On the one hand, he’s a smart enough player and good enough technically to play in a vertical, counter-attacking way, but he also has the more traditional playmaking attributes. He receives possession extremely well. He uses it with more craft than anybody else at the club. As and when necessary, he’s also able to beat defenders with little dashes of skill that are disguised by his spiderish gait.

That’s not necessarily a criticism of the other players. Instead, it just highlights what they don’t have when Brooks isn’t available. There have been a few other issues this season. Lloyd Kelly’s absence has disadvantaged them and Lewis Cook, who is in danger of becoming a lost boy of English football, has started just 11 games. Kelly would have brought some culture down the left and Cook should be more than just a vague theory by now. Elsewhere, unfortunately, the defence also remains as porous as ever.

Specific to his department, however, Brooks is supposed to be the tonal variation to all the verticality. He’s both an enabler of players like Wilson, King and Fraser, someone who can combine very effectively with them, but also a contrast to what they represent. He allows Bournemouth to be proactive rather than reactive. Or at least he makes the ratios between those two approaches healthier. And, having scored just 29 goals from 29 games, that’s a balance they really need.

He’s been injured for such a long time that it’s been easy to forget him. About his ability, yes, and where his career may lead if he can stay fit (he has been linked with Manchester United), but also the problem his injury causes and what his absence has left Bournemouth without. Neutrals should want him back, because that willowy, wispy skill is wonderful to watch, but for his club it’s a more fundamental and pressing need.

Can they score enough goals without David Brooks? No, but hopefully that question will soon be redundant.

Seb Stafford-Bloor is on Twitter.

 

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