Mitchell: Demouge was not a dud

AFC Bournemouth chairman Eddie Mitchell insists that Dutch striker Frank Demouge was not a dud.

6ft 3in Demouge, came through the youth system at Nijmegen Eendracht Combinatie, before moving on to FC Eindhoven, FC Den Bosch and Willem II Tilburg before moving to Eredivisie side FC Utrecht in August 2010, initially on loan before making the move permanent during that summer.

He scored 8 goals in 26 appearances during his first season with Utrecht, including one goal against Napoli in the UEFA Europa League.

During his final season in Eredivisie he scored 7 goals in 23 appearances, with five of those goals coming in his final four appearances of the season.

Demouge was reportedly recommended to then Cherries manager Paul Groves by Cherries Russian co-owner Maxim Demin and in June 2012 he agreed a two year deal to move to England.

After a slow introduction to the English game, with Demouge admitting he wasn't used to the physical aspects of pre-season training in England, the Dutchman made one brief appearance in a friendly, only to go off early with a knee injury.

That knee injury kept him on the sidelines for around two months, but he finally made his Cherries debut, starting against Walsall at the end of September. He went on to play the full 90 minutes and started again a few days later away to Crawley.

However he only lasted eleven minutes in the game after sustaining concussion.

It proved to be Paul Groves final game in charge of the club and under new manager Eddie Howe, Demouge failed to break into the side.

After reports that he had rejected the chance to join League Two side Aldershot on loan he joined Dutch club Roda JC an Eredivisie side based in Kerkrade for the remainder of the 2012/13 season.

Mitchell told the Daily Echo...

'...He has gone back to a top-flight club in Holland so it is not as if he was a dud. He just didn`t make the breaks he would have wanted, for reasons only he and the managers know.

"If we find there are players needing to play and wanting to move because they are in a foreign country, we will let them go, providing the manager is agreeable...'

'...We are not here to waste money for the club, we are here to cut our cloth as tightly as we can and still try to be successful. Frank fitted in well and always conducted himself properly. But you can only get 11 men on the pitch and we have got people in that position who Eddie chooses to pick. That is the way football is."

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