Seeing is believing and Bingham looked the part

It has been a long time since I have seen the Cherries kicking the ball about. The Millwall away games seems years ago, but it was a real treat to see the team play at Vulkanlandarena in Austria against FC Copenhagen. You could see that there is plenty of work still to do but in the first half I felt that Arter really got a grip of the game while Ritchie was trying to get in the ball as much as he could. The passing was what I looked most closely at and while there were quite a few long diagonal balls from one wing to another the movement of the players seemed fairly strong and FC Copenhagen took a while to match the Cherries' performance.

Kermorgant and Arter kept FC Copenhagen busy first half.

You can't put too much ficus on such games as they only give you a glimpse of how the players are doing. I thought Eddie Howe would have taken a close look at the play of Adam Smith who looked quite settled at right back. I did not see much of Pugh or Gosling although that might have been a bit down to the the camera being on the right side of the pitch and further away from them.

What I didn't expect was to be shown that we have a young striker who has such good control and a bit of confidence about him. Rakish Bingham looked the part and I expect even Eddie Howe will have been watching him with a smile on his face. Bingham is currently on trial with the Cherries but he is a Wigan player and played 11 games on loan at Falkirk last season. I thought he offered himself to the ball well and linked with Rantie especially well. He is only 20 years-old so a good potential signing for the first team let alone the Development squad from what I saw. Sticking a goal away in the FC Copenhagen friendly won't have done his case any harm. I'd like to see more of him and hope he plays in some more of the friendlies coming up.

Bingham was one of the more exciting aspects of the second half of the FC Copenhagen game, but the players on show in that half seemed to find it more hard going against the Danish team. Flahavan also had a bit more to do apart from picking the ball out of the net twice. I did not see FC Copenhagen's first goal or the penalty incident that led to the second, (O'Kane was said to be the culprit) but it is fair to say that the start of the second half was none too good for the Cherries as they conceded two goals in the space of a couple of minutes. Concentration was probably not what it could have been and we know what that is like when you are playing in the Championship so I hope Eddie makes the players switch on to such things. Gisalson and Mussis scored the goals for FC Copenhagen.

Last night the club put up the full 90 minutes again on the official AFCB website so you could see the goals but it appears to have been taken down again. Perhaps they don't want Championship teams making too many notes. I did find a back link to the first half though here while it is kept alive. Some how it still edits out Ritchie's first half goal!

After a bit of digging though I have found the match highlights with some goals for you all.

Kyle Cotter and his World Cup Watch is back to preview the third/fourth place play-off match between Brazil and Netherlands on World Cup Chimes - is it a waste of time?