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Eddie Howe: Bournemouth rejected West Ham's bid for Wilson, Ritchie

Eddie Howe is determined to keep Callum Wilson and Matt Ritchie at Bournemouth after rejecting West Ham's £20 million bid on the eve of their season finale.

Sunday's bomb scare at Old Trafford forced the hasty rearrangement of the final Premier League match, which Manchester United won 3-1 on Tuesday.

As if the Cherries' build-up was not tough enough, they also had to deal with a bid from West Ham for striker Wilson and midfielder Ritchie.

Press Association Sport reported the east Londoners' offer was worth £20m for the pair, and it was one which Howe gave short shrift to.

"We had a bid yesterday evening," the Bournemouth manager said.

"The disappointing thing from my perspective is why the bid has come in a day before a game, our last game of the season? You've got the whole summer to bid for players. I don't understand that.

"I've got then two players in the squad who were due to play and a lot of speculation around their futures, so I think that was bizarre from this club's perspective.

"But the bid was rejected and we have no intention to sell."

Howe accepted keeping the Bournemouth squad together was always the "biggest challenge" this summer, but believes they head into the break in a position of strength.

"We don't need to sell," he added. "We have a really ambitious owner. We want to try and improve our squad, not weaken it.

"We are trying to desperately move this team forwards and looking at it the other way, bringing recruits in to strengthen what is already a good group. That's the summer we hope to have."

Howe said it was "difficult" for his team to play at Old Trafford two days after they were initially supposed to kick off.

"It was quite difficult I have to be honest. I think it was difficult for everyone connected with our club," he said. "Mentally for the players, I think they obviously had a lot of plans beyond the game on Sunday, as you would at the end of the season, and suddenly those have to change.

"And mentally when you think the season is over, to have to extend it just from a pure training perspective it was difficult because we couldn't do anything with the players. Our training pitches and main pitch have gone.

"But we got round it and we did our best, but Man United were too good tonight for us."

Asked for clarification on the training pitch matter, Howe said: "They are being redone and our main pitch is being relaid for the summer."