Friday 11 August 2017 11:05, UK
Junior Stanislas is expected to miss the first month of the Premier League season, Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe has confirmed.
Despite undergoing groin surgery at the end of the last campaign, Stanislas has been unable to play a full part in pre-season.
Speaking ahead of Bournemouth's season-opener at West Brom on Saturday, Howe admits his squad is weakened by the former West Ham winger's absence, although he has no immediate plans to add new faces.
Howe said: "Junior Stanislas is out. He is the big miss at the moment but everybody else is fit to play [this weekend]. We don't envisage he will be out for long, maybe a month maximum.
"But we're in a good place. I am happy with the pre-season that we have had. The players have come back very, fit, very focused and ready to work straightaway. From that perspective I feel we are ready."
Asked if he envisages adding to his squad between now and the end of the transfer window, Howe said: "There are no immediate plans [to bring anyone else in].
"But regardless of how long is left in the window we're never totally closed to business because you never know when you need to act dependent on injuries and things like that, but we have no immediate plans to bring anyone else in.
"I think we're covered in all the positions at this moment in time. We have a well-balanced squad. We are certainly a smaller tighter squad than at this stage last season but the quality is higher and that's the big difference."
Howe spent more than £30m on bringing Nathan Ake and Asmir Begovic to the Vitality Stadium from Chelsea this summer, and has also brought in Jermain Defoe and Connor Mahoney on free transfers.
"I'm really pleased to have done our main transfer business early," Howe added.
"That's always the ideal [situation] for every manager. Sometimes things don't work to plan but we've been quite fortunate this summer that we were able to get the guys in early and have full pre-season with the majority of them. That will hopefully benefit us early in the season."
