AFC Bournemouth struck Leeds United bargain with 2016 agreement: View | OneFootball

The summer of 2016 was certainly an exciting time to be connected with AFC Bournemouth.

The season before that had just seen the Cherries compete in the top-flight of English football for the first time in their history.

In doing so, the club had secured a 16th-placed finish that ensured they retained their Premier League status for the following campaign.

Looking ahead to that 2016/17 season, the club will have been keen for a productive spell in the market, in order to put together a squad capable of remaining competitive at the top level.

As a result, a number of players were brought to the club in that particular transfer, one of which did look to be a particularly smart signing for Bournemouth in the circumstances.

Bournemouth raided Leeds United for Lewis Cook

In total, eight new players were added to the first-team at The Vitality Stadium in the 2016 summer transfer window.

One of those to join the club was Lewis Cook, who joined from Leeds United, with the then 19-year-old having spent all of his senior career to date at Elland Road.

In that time, he had made 85 appearances in all competitions for the club, who were at the time competing in the Championship.

It was reported that Bournemouth paid Leeds an initial fee in the region of £6 million to sign the midfielder, who still had the world at his feet at the time.

Now, almost seven years later, it does feel as though the Cherries secured something of a bargain when they completed that deal to sign Cook for such a fee.

Lewis Cook has proved to be an excellent signing for Bournemouth

Having completed that move to Bournemouth, Cook initially endured a frustrating first season with the club, where he has limited to a handful of appearances by injury.

After that though, the midfielder wasted no time in making his mark on the side, even with his lack of top-flight experience, and relatively young age at that point.

When fit, Cook has been a consistent feature in this Bournemouth, helping to influence play form the centre of the park, and protecting the backline behind him.

The midfielder's contributions helped keep the Cherries in the Premier League until the end of the 2019/20 season.

Indeed, perhaps the clearest of reflection of how good he was in that period was in 2018, when Cook became one of two players to ever be capped by England at senior international level while on the books of Bournemouth, along with Callum Wilson.

Despite that disappointment of relegation in 2020, Cook remained at The Vitality Stadium, and again played an important role in their promotion back to the top-flight two years later.

Since then, the midfielder has remained a key figure in their squad, helping them to re-establish themselves in top-flight, and register their record points tally in the Premier League this season.

In total, he has now over 200 appearances in all competitions for Bournemouth, showing the length of significance of his service to the club, and he has been a regular under Andoni Iraola since his summer appointment.

It is also worth noting that at 27-years-old, there is still plenty more for Cook to offer in his career.

However, his contract with Bournemouth is set to expire at the end of next season, meaning the club may need to cash in on him this summer, if they want to make money from his departure.

If they do that, his proven Premier League pedigree and ability means they will surely receive more for his services than they paid for him back in the summer of 2016.

Even if that does not work out and he does leave for free next summer, the financial windfall they have earned from this period as a Premier League club, thanks in no small part to the contributions of Cook, means the money Bournemouth paid to sign him from Leeds, has surely been worth it.

On the flip side, Leeds will perhaps be wondering if they got the short end of the straw some eight years ago when selling Cook to the Dorset outfit.

The playmaker had already played 80 times in the Championship before exiting his teens, and £6 million on the face of it seems pretty cheap - if the same deal had happened in 2024, he would perhaps be going for north of £20 million.

Leeds cannot turn back time though, and they will be watching Cook perform very well in the Premier League and wondering whether or not he could have helped them back to the top flight much earlier than they ended up getting there in 2020.