What a job Eddie Howe is doing at AFCB

Most of us fans have been so enjoying the current season that it is easy to forget what a fantastic job Eddie Howe has done in taking this team as far as he has. I wonder how many other managers could have come into the job a couple of years ago and win promotion from League One and then push the club on to become one of the top teams in the Championship?

Eddie's personal touch has really lifted
everyone who follows and is associated with AFCB. 

I often reflect what might have been had Eddie Howe not come back to the club in 2012 and what situation the club could have been in if Maxim Demin had not arrived on the scene. The prospect of League Two football seems hard to comprehend now, but those days fighting relegation and the earlier transfer embargoes made the club stronger than many that it has since overtaken.

Behind it all though is a manager that never takes credit for his own accomplishments and yet he sacrifices so much of his time to see the club succeed that you have to feel he is one in more than a few million. What luck it was that Eddie has always had a strong association with the club and that he feels a great affinity with everyone in the town that are willing him to take the club to the Premier League. He picked up his second manager of the month award this season for the performance of the team in December. As always he was quick to highlight others' work rather than his own.

Still, the fans know why the team has been doing well and if Eddie can pick off a few more top victories like a win against Aston Villa his rating will go even higher to outsiders. If the unthinkable happens and AFCB do have an incredible second half of the season I imagine the queue to shake one man's hand to say thank you might well go from Kings Park to the town centre next May

Well done to Harry Arter for picking up the PFA Fans' player of the month and to a very strong AFCB Development squad that beat Swindon 8-2 yesterday.

Transfer watch
Burnley are still said to be keen on Steve Cook along with four other Premier league clubs, but the defender is not keen on leaving AFCB at the moment. Eddie Howe also said he never expects AFCB to pay out wages of 30,000 a week for a player at the club, as he refuted claims made by the national press earlier this week.