The last time Bournemouth hosted Manchester City, they lost 2-1 to a 97th-minute goal from Raheem Sterling and Nathan Ake did not leave the house for a week.

“I had a bad game myself. When I got home, my girlfriend’s family were there and I hardly spoke. I didn’t want to go out of the house. I didn’t want to be seen. It used to tear me up when we lost games, it stayed in me for weeks. I was a bad loser at everything. When we used to play board games, I had fights with my family and I had to go to my room.”

Eighteen months on, a more relaxed Ake is serenity personified as he contemplates the arrival of the Premier League Champions once more on Saturday afternoon - even after enduring a 5-1 beating at Arsenal less than 24 hours before we meet.

“I told myself that I would change and that I had to change," he said. "I spoke to (manager) Eddie Howe a few times and he told me if you dwell on it too much, maybe you’ll keep it in you for the next game. You always have the hunger to win games but it’s better to analyse things calmly than to just be angry all the time.”

This is a man who takes his own well-being seriously and daily walks along Bournemouth beach with his Pomeranian dog, Mallow, are one of the ways he escapes the pressures of the Premier League.

“I was never really a dog guy, we never had dogs in the house when I was young. But my missus did so we got this dog and I always thought, ‘how can you love dogs?’ But when I got one, it’s one of the best things. He’s always happy. When you lose games he is the one who jumps on you,” smiles the 24 year-old.

The notion of a dreadlocked Dutch professional footballer strolling along a traditional English seaside promenade with a tiny German dog is perhaps a strange one, but Ake, who sometimes bumps into Howe exercising his own pet, enjoys the small-town familiarity of it and is happy to stop and chat.

“A lot of people just say nice things. A lot of people you start to know, too, because you see them every time on the beach so it’s nice. I like it because you have the beach, nature, it’s calm, it’s relaxed. You have so many places you can walk and sometimes it looks like a different country.”

It is an atmosphere in stark contrast to the one Ake found when he moved to Chelsea’s academy from Dutch Club ADO Den Haag as a 16 year-old with his older brother, Cedric, for company.

Nathan Ake (right) playing for Chelsea in the FA Cup in 2013 credit: getty images

“He was always a really good player as well. At the age of 18 or 19 he got the move to ADO Den Hag, a professional club. He went to the reserves, I went to Chelsea and he said, ‘Ok I want to support you and help you’, so basically he gave up his life to help me.

"We’ve always been close since we were young. I was always allowed to play with his friends. He is four years older but that made me more physical at a young age because I was playing with older people. When I was playing with ADO Den Hag in the youth teams at that time I was quite strong because I was used to older people.”

The Akes are a close-family unit. His parents, Caroline and Moise, have remained in the Netherlands but visit often and now their youngest son is the one keeping everyone else grounded.

“They’re involved too much,” he laughs. “They get hysterical, they get scared, they want us to win and if we don’t win they almost cry, it’s crazy.”

Ake qualifies to play for the Ivory Coast through his father and, though he has never visited, has been contacted by the manager in an attempt to persuade him to represent Les Elephants.

Though he is now a mainstay in Ronald Koeman’s Holland squad, he is keen to visit his paternal homeland and discover whether or not his father’s apocryphal tales have any truth to them.

“If I have to believe him he was the best player in the Ivory Coast! He always comes with stories – he did this trick on the streets and it was the best – blah blah blah. I never saw it on the pitch. All from his dreams,” he jokes.

Ake's own footballing journey has been rather smoother, although there was one particularly difficult hurdle along the way.

“I went to the first team at Chelsea and played under Rafa Benitez and I always thought, ‘why is everyone saying setbacks are coming because everything is going up, up, up?’ The season after Benitez left I thought, 'this is going to be my season'. Then Jose Mourinho came and, without training, I got dropped into the second team.

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"That was one of the toughest things for me, mentally. I was quite broken. Everything was going great, I played a few games, I was Young Player of the Year and then I was in the reserves again.”

There is no trace of bitterness in Ake's voice as he recalls these tough times. Indeed, he speaks fondly of his time at Stamford Bridge, grateful in particular to John Terry and Paulo Ferreira for their guidance, and to Diego Costa.

Ake admits, however, that he has faced no better striker than the man he’ll line up against at 3pm on Staurday afternoon: Sergio Aguero.

“When he gets the chances, it’s almost game over. He’s very good at holding up the ball. He’s very strong. Upper body strength, even lower body. Obviously he’s not the biggest but he’s strong.”

Ake is in for a draining afternoon when City come calling. But, regardless of the result, at least he will always be guaranteed a cuddle from Mallow.