Ryan Fraser’s favourite Domino’s pizza was the meat feast. He was also partial to a few scoops of ice cream. In fact, Fraser was not too fussy about anything he had to eat until Eddie Howe, Bournemouth’s manager, pulled him aside one day. “He said to me: ‘You’re not playing for me again until you work all this crap off,’” Fraser says.
Older and wiser, Fraser looks back on those early days at Bournemouth with a smile. The fresh-faced teenager who was unable to turn the oven on when he swapped Aberdeen for Bournemouth is now cooking up a storm in the kitchen, 15kg lighter on the scales and, as Arsenal’s Héctor Bellerín will testify, making a name for himself as one of the quickest players in the Premier League.
Fraser, or the “wee man”, as the 5ft 4in Scot is known to his team-mates, tormented Bellerín in that thrilling 3-3 draw against Arsenal at the start of the month, having inflicted similar pain on Liverpool in December, when he came off the bench to inspire a remarkable 4-3 victory. The Liverpool match was a seminal moment in Fraser’s career – he was man of the match even though he was on the pitch for only 35 minutes – and no one was happier for him than Howe.
“We’ve been together for four years now and, when I wasn’t really fulfilling what we both knew I could do, he could have given up on me, sold me on, or not bothered giving me a new contract before I went to Ipswich,” Fraser says, referring to a loan spell last season. “But it’s not just about football with the gaffer. I think we like each other as people. On a morning, we don’t shake hands; he always hugs me. I came here when I was young, I didn’t have any family down here and I suppose he felt that he’d better look after me.”
Howe’s paternal instincts shine through in so many ways, right down to how he addresses Fraser when he does something wrong. “The gaffer calls me ‘wee guy’,” Fraser says. “And then when he’s annoyed with me he calls me ‘Ryan’. If he calls me Ryan on the training pitch I think: ‘I’d better do something right here.’”
It is easy to see why Howe warms to Fraser, who hopes to continue his impressive form at home against Watford on Saturday. Friendly and generous with his time, there is nothing loud or brash about a 22-year-old who was described by Craig Brown, his manager at Aberdeen, as “son-in-law material”.
“I feel down to earth,” says Fraser, “I am the worst-dressed [at Bournemouth] because I am not on the money that the other lads might be on. But even if I was, then I would still get my jeans from Top Man when they are going to Balmain. I am not flash at all really, never have been. If fans want to talk to me in Tesco, I will. I am a normal person like anyone else. I just play football.”
Fraser has changed in one respect, though. By his own admission, he was “quite a mummy’s boy” when he arrived in Bournemouth aged 18. Unable to work the dishwasher or make dinner for himself, Fraser found comfort in going out and buying fast food. “Because I couldn’t cook, I used to take out a lot,” he says. “I put on a bit of weight and it used to affect my football, so when the gaffer found out, I had to go on a mini boot camp in the season.
“It all stemmed from Aberdeen. I used to have Domino’s all the time and ice creams from Baskin Robbins. I think up there … I don’t want to sound disrespectful because the standard was good, but it was a lot better down here. I think even if I was eating rubbish up there I could get away with it, whereas down here I got found out straight away. People knew that I wasn’t doing the best for my body, which has all changed now.
“Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I ate chocolate or had pizza. I eat everything right now. It’s boring but you see the benefits of it. I’ve learned to cook, I’ve got Lean in 15 cookbooks – I even make my own sauces. If I have lasagne, it will be homemade with the sheets. It’s a little bit geekish but I enjoy it.”
Fraser has reaped the rewards. “I’m 70kg now. I reckon I was about 85kg before,” he says. “I look lean now. But back then I had fat cheeks. I wasn’t as ripped as footballers are. The thing is, I was still quick, but I couldn’t last games. The first 30 minutes I used to be flying, but then you wouldn’t see me after it, whereas now I can sustain it until 60-70 minutes. After that I think it’s hard for any winger.”
He has much more about him than speed, yet it is Fraser’s searing pace that catches the eye for obvious reasons. He is the quickest player in the Bournemouth squad, covering up to 10.4m per second in their tests, and his team‑mates were fascinated to see how he would fare against Bellerín, who is no slouch. Fraser’s wonderful solo goal in that game provided the answer.
“Simon Francis was saying before: ‘Put balls in behind Bellerín for ‘wee man’ – I want to see the race’. After the goal, Fran had his hands over his face. It’s nuts,” says Fraser, shaking his head. “He [Bellerín] is one of the fastest in the league and the world. He had a couple of yards on me, so to catch him just gives me confidence I can do it to every full-back.”
It turns out that speed is in Fraser’s DNA. “My mum used to run for Scotland, she was a 100m sprinter. She had to have an operation and didn’t come back the same. But if she raced me now, I reckon she’d still be keeping up with me – she’s rapid,” says Fraser, who prefers a slightly shorter finishing line. “I like to only run 40-50m. My little legs can’t do the 100m!”
Fraser’s size has often been cited as a possible weakness. He was turned down by his local team after the family moved back to Scotland from Oman, where his dad, Graeme, worked in the oil industry. “I was about nine or 10 and got rejected by Cove boys’ club for being too small,” Fraser says.
He returned a year later, scored a bucketload of goals and was picked up by Aberdeen, where he made his debut at 16 and quickly discovered that defenders did not take too kindly to a teenager that had the ability to make them look stupid. “I’ve seen footage and, excuse my language here, but I got the shit kicked out of me,” Fraser says.
Fraser was always going to need some time to adapt to life in England, yet in his mind it was “make or break” when he reported back in the summer. He was full of confidence after his season-long loan at Ipswich but needed an early reminder that Bournemouth’s style of play was a bit more refined. “I remember the first day I hit a shot from 30 yards and the gaffer was like: ‘What are you doing? We don’t do that here!’”
The news that Bournemouth had signed Jordon Ibe, another winger, for £15m from Liverpool in the summer was a blow to Fraser – “I thought that might have killed me a little bit,” he says – and there was a time when his head dropped as he flitted in and out of the squad. Yet Howe kept offering words of encouragement and it was one conversation in particular, during the regular individual feedback sessions that the Bournemouth manager holds with all of his players, that proved to be the turning point.
“We went over a game against Tottenham,” Fraser recalls. “I got on for one minute and there was one time I could have run at Danny Rose. I got the ball and passed it backwards at 0-0, 90th minute. The manager said: ‘What is your thought process?’ I said: ‘It’s 0-0, the lads have worked hard and I don’t want him to tackle me, they go up the pitch and score’.
“The manager said: ‘Why not think about going past him, getting a cross in and an assist to win the game? Or shoot and score?’ I was like: ‘All right, yes.’ My mindset was not as positive as his and that has changed now. ‘What is the positive outcome, not the negative?’ That is basically what I thought in that Liverpool game.”
It is a fascinating insight into the way that Howe thinks and works, highlighting the manager’s attention to detail and the sort of time he invests in his players. “I have just read Pep Guardiola’s book and I can’t believe how similar they are,” Fraser adds. “I can’t see so many other coaches doing the things he does but that is also why I think he will go all the way to the top.”
Howe has high hopes for Fraser, too, and told him as much on the pitch at the end of the Liverpool match. “He didn’t say: ‘You’ve done it,’” the player reveals. “He just said: ‘This is your time to kick on because you’ve got all the confidence in the world now. We can see what you can do.’ And ever since then I suppose I have kicked on.”
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