Henderson will be looking for a clean sheet

I think Stephen Henderson will get the nod to start in goal against Forest. This week Stephen he have been training hard at trying to ensure he is at his best, while staying ahead of Ryan Allsop in the pecking order. Keeping a clean sheet at the City ground would be a great achievement, and that must be the first aim of the Cherries as they take on a top four side. Eddie and Jason sounded quite delighted that Stephen is joining the Cherries for such a lengthy loan period and it is a good chance for our defence to work with a keeper that has been working himself in the shadow of Jussi Jaaskelainen.

Like Jack Collison, Henderson will be looking to show that he should be involved in West Ham's team and the only way he can do that is to play well for AFCB while he is with the Cherries. Henderson played some 20 games last season for Ipswich Town, so he should be well aware of the challenge ahead of him and it will be intriguing to see if he can make our defence more solid. Being such a specialist position most teams do not seem to change their keepers very often, but AFCB have struggled to find a regular keeper that can hold down the position over the last few seasons. Jalal, Flahavan and Allsop have all had their turn and had varying degrees of success while David James also kept for the Cherries last season.

Henderson at the Goldsands stadium for his debut against Millwall.

Eddie Howe would probably prefer to have a keeper that was a clear number one and to have an unchanged keeper in the Championship. While that stability has mainly been achieved with Ryan Allsop, I think Henderson's arrival will lift all the other keeper's performances and should help ensure that they are all working to improve their game.

Looking at AFCB's away games this season it is apparent that clean sheets have not come easy. They have only achieved that against Doncaster Rovers and if AFCB want to keep in the top half of the table this is an area where they can try and improve. The team has a pretty settled back four of late, although Daniels and Elphick are obviously keen to get back into the side, injury permitting in the case of Daniels.

I have already mentioned in another post how Stephen Henderson is a keeper that likes to come for the ball on crosses and dominate his area. That is something that I don't think AFCB have been seeing enough of an, if Stephen can make some good saves as well, early on in the Forest match, it could set him up for a big spell as the Cherries number one in the coming games.  

Please check out our Rival Lines post this morning if you have not don so already we have Forest 24-7 and Forest fan Rob Jovanovic to tell us what has been happening at Nottingham Forest this season.