A frantic first 10 minutes for AFCB and their supporters

For all the pleasing headlines in the 5:2 scoreline of Bournemouth's last home victory against Millwall you have to wonder what is going on in the first 10 minutes of our games? If we are not scoring ourselves we are letting them in.

I'm afraid the Millwall match was an example of sloppy defending in the first few minutes. The first goal came from a long kick up field and AFCB have to be aware that some teams will go long and play in a different way to us. There was also a big gap between our defence and midfield so that when Francis headed the ball out, Totter had an age to pick out a pass to Waghorn, the eventual scorer, because none of our midfield were close enough.

The second goal was even more inexcusable because the ball was given away when AFCB weren't even under pressure. The Arter pass was reminiscent of the misplaced pass he did in the Wigan FA Cup second leg tie last season. That one also led to a goal. You can also say that perhaps Arter was brought straight back into the team against Millwall when the bench could have been better for him.

Arter digs himself out of a hole.

However, Arter's second half performance makes a nonsense of that. Arter stuck at his game or "dug himself out of a hole" as he liked to put it in his post match interview. That is a great attribute to have. His head did not go down and he got his reward with a thunderous shot that gave Bournemouth their third goal against Millwall. The positives are really there with this team. They so want to win and to give a good account of themselves.

Against Huddersfield and Watford the team could not come back. But they fought back at Middlesbrough and turned the Millwall game around completely. In fact, the Millwall game is the first one where they have come from behind to get all three points. That should give the team a bit more confidence in the future. I'd like to say the team is learning and progressing. 

I was kicking myself after the first 10 minutes against Millwall, because it's hard enough to win games in the Championship without giving other teams a two nil head start. Yet, Millwall were clearly beatable and have defensive issues of their own. It only took about 10 minutes for the score to go from 1:2 to 4:2 in this game which shows Bournemouth can score quickly when they are really motoring, because only one of those goals came from a penalty and Millwall had 11 men on the pitch up until then.

We got out of jail a bit in the last game. Let's have a better start against Nottingham Forest in a couple of weeks time. I'm sure it is something that Eddie and Jason will look at because if the team can start to get leads in matches they certainly have the passing game to see games out.

You can now listen to All Departments' Kangeroo Court on the 5:2 victory on All Departments' website or on the side bar on Cherry Chimes.