While everyone has been celebrating how well the AFCB team has done, there is certainly one striker at the club who will be thinking what happened to his goal count towards the end of last season. I feel that Lewis Grabban did extremely well in his first season at Bournemouth, having started off with some great finishes and he took the fight to the opposition by leading the line well in the first part of the season. I am not sure if he changed his role slightly or felt that he needed to play slightly less greedily in the second half of the season, when Pitman came into the team, but the goals for Lewis dried up.
That is not to say that he wasn't playing well, stretching teams and making space for others to exploit. It is just the number of one-on-ones that he could not convert that concerned me. At Colchester he had a great opportunity to put the game to bed before half-time and again at the home match against Bury Lewis had chances to get on the score sheet but failed.
His 13 goals were still a vital contribution to the team and I'm sure he will look to improve on that in the Championship. It will be a step up for him but the goal is still the same size and he will have had a season behind him to better understand the way AFCB play. For those of you scratching your heads trying to work out when Grabban last scored, I make it during the 2:0 home win against Portsmouth on 9 February. But Lewis can claim that he would have had a few more goals had Pitman not taken over the Cerries' penalty spot duties.
Some of you will certainly be looking for Lewis to be replaced by another top striker. But there is no guarantees if Lewis stays in the starting 11 or if we bring in someone else. Eddie Howe has already spoken about finding the cutting-edge and it is here that I am sure he is looking. He needs his front men to be deadly and if he can get them working as a pair AFCB will have a better chance of being towards the top end of the league.
Personally, I think Lewis will get his starting place because his all round game is important to how the Cherries play, but I hope he is practising those one-on-ones in pre-season. We need Grabban to be confident of sticking away his chances.
This is a fan’s personal view of AFC Bournemouth from the outside looking in. It reports on the daily official activities reported by the club and comments made by individual fans on social media and fanbase websites. Life as an AFCB fan is never dull. As a life-long supporter of the Cherries, it is the friendliness of the staff, fans and my enthusiasm for the club that inspired me to write this blog.
We'll keep hold of Tubbs won't get our money back selling him like 2 c another striker come in Pitmans goals shows u need goals
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