'It is important to do something outside of football, to change mindset'

Full-back Adrien Truffert tells Ben Fisher how he has adapted to English football and reveals his first steps were on a Bournemouth beach

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Adrien Truffert has form for hitting the ground running. At Rennes, the club he joined at 13 and spent a decade at until leaving for Bournemouth in the summer, his debut arrived as a substitute against Monaco and culminated in him teeing up the equaliser with a wicked left-foot cross and then scoring a stoppage-time winner. Aged 18, Truffert sent a shot underneath Benjamin Lecomte, the opposition goalkeeper who visits Bournemouth with Fulham this evening. “I ran off celebrating and slid on my knees,” Truffert says, “like you dream of doing as a kid after scoring your first goal.”

Truffert has excelled for Bournemouth from the moment he contained Mohamed Salah on his first outing in a fearless team performance at Liverpool - where he also outshone his predecessor at left-back Milos Kerkez - and has played every minute in the Premier League this season.

“We know we lost, so it cannot be perfect, but I think we played very well,” he says of Bournemouth’s trip to Anfield and their sole defeat in the competition this campaign. “I was very excited because it was my first game and it was a very good night. We have made a good start, but now we need to continue and win this week.”

Listening to Truffert discuss his £11m move to the south coast, the first transfer of his career, it is little surprise he has slotted in so seamlessly. Staff talk of an intelligent individual and he is evidently switched on. He recognised the benefits of signing in June, to bed in during preseason, and has spent the past two years having English lessons, aware how valuable they would prove if he achieved his ambition of reaching the Premier League.