Ritchie can regain his form

Matt Ritchie has been quite open this week about his own belief that he has dropped from his very high standards of late. It has been there for all to see and is perhaps not so unexpected when you consider he didn't have much of a pre-season and when he came into the matches over the Christmas period he came in flying and set the place alight. He simply couldn't keep doing that and today Eddie Howe has said Matt was playing on adrenalin.

On his day Matt Ritchie is probably our most skillful player. He does things with the ball which are spell binding at times. I certainly think that some of the opposition teams are aware of Ritchie's talents and do look to do a job on him to keep him quiet. Even so he managed a few great crosses in the Leicester game and while he did not have many efforts on goal he is still the man I like to see a chance fall to out of all AFCB's players because 9 times out of 10 he'll probably hit the target.

Matt Ricthie is a special player and will soon be back to his best.

Having seen the performance of Ryan Fraser in the first half against Leicester and with Marc Pugh not in the squad for the Leicester game the wing positions are an area where AFCB need some good news. It does not help that Mohamed Coulibaly has not made a league appearance, but that may change soon. With Charlie Daniels also out the service from wide areas is not looking such a strength at present for AFCB.

So Eddie Howe will be asking Matt Ritchie to get back on his game and to start doing the things that he was doing so well when he came back in the early winter months, early crosses, plenty of shots and quick link up play. Ritchie will not hide. He likes to receive the ball and when he does the level of expectancy always goes up. I hope a bit of rest in not having to play a full 90 minutes will have helped him. All Ritchie needs is a goal to lift his spirits and that might come against Bolton wanderers at the Reebok stadium.

Finally, good luck to Shwan Jalal who starts a months loan at Leyton Orient today.