AFC Bournemouth have made an approach for French footballing legend Patrick Vieira to become their new manager, according to The Mirror.

The Cherries have been looking at potential new bosses for weeks following their failure to Brentford in the Championship play-off semi-finals, with Jonathan Woodgate reaching the end of his short-term contract with the club.

Scott Parker looked to be lined-up from Fulham but talk of that has quietened down in recent days, and now Vieira's name has entered the mix

Vieira would be the second former France international and Arsenal icon that Bournemouth have attempted to get this year, with Thierry Henry being the subject of an approach when Jason Tindall was sacked in February, but the attempts to get Vieira look like they will be more successful.

Let's look at two pros and two cons to the 44-year-old potentially becoming the new man in charge at Dean Court.

PRO: Has a decent managerial record

Being a big name in the world of football, Vieira was fortunate enough to walk into an interesting first managerial job at New York City in the MLS in 2016, thanks to his links to Manchester City.

Vieira led NYC to the Eastern Conference semi-finals in both of his full seasons there before moving onto OGC Nice in France's top tier, where he finished seventh and fifth in Ligue 1 in 2019 and 2020.

Things didn't go too well this past season early on which led to Vieira losing his job in December 2020, but he's definitely earned the right to be considered for top Championship and lower Premier League jobs.

CON: Inexperience

Despite doing pretty well in his first two managerial roles, Vieira compared to other potential candidates would still be classed as inexperienced.

Having been a manager for just four seasons, there's definitely managers out there who would be a lot wiser to the challenges of the Championship - think the likes of Harry Redknapp, Sam Allardyce or even a Chris Wilder.

But do the pros outweigh the cons in this instance? Vieira's pulling power could bring better players to the Vitality Stadium and his inexperience in that case may not even matter.

 

 

 

 

PRO: May be able to keep star players

Bournemouth were able to keep a lot of their stars following Premier League relegation in order to have a real go of things to get back at the first attempt.

The likes of David Brooks, Jefferson Lerma, Arnaut Danjuma and others remained when they would have had suitors elsewhere, but after falling in the play-offs their stance may now be different and they could be looking at the Premier League and other foreign top leagues.

However if Vieira were to be appointed, surely those big names would want to perhaps stay and play under him to see if they can develop any more than they already have - and Lerma especially would be interesting to see under Vieira as they have some similar characteristics to when the Frenchman was playing.

CON: No Championship know-how

It's not always necessary to have experience managing in England but it's always a plus point as the Championship can be a real dogfight at the best of times.

Having coached in the USA and France, Vieira wouldn't really have a proper understanding of how the Championship fully works - unless he has an extensive scouting team or he has done his own Bielsa-like research.

Some managers have to spend a few years at this level to finally get things right - like Thomas Frank has done with Brentford - but others like Xisco Munoz at Watford just walk into it and succeed with promotion at the first time of asking.

So it would be interesting to see what side of the coin Vieira lands on if he's appointed as he would be a total novice in this country.