Is shipping the odd goal a worry for AFCB?

Not much has been said about Matt Smith's goal for Fulham against AFCB. It's hardly surprising as the positives of the game far outweighed any negatives and yet the Cherries have been opened up by a couple of passes alongside their centre backs in the last two games and Eddie Howe may just start to question why that is.

AFCB defenders go through their warm up routine.

I felt that Fulham's goal was very well taken. It was a sharp move with Ross McCormack as usual at the centre of anything good that Fulham had to offer. The fact that he is such a goal threat probably caused our centre halves to concentrate on him for  just a bit too long from what I could see, before he slipped the ball through for Matt Smith and with his hard hit finish there was little Artur Boruc could do, even though he got pretty close to getting something on the shot.

While the defence will probably feel that the goal took a bit of the shine off the fabulous overall performance on the night, there are sometimes when players have to hold their hand up and say we were undone there. It is not something that should happen regularly though and Steve Cook and Tommy Elphick will no doubt be checking the tapes to see if they could have done anything different to stop Matt Smith getting his shot away.

Of course AFCB have been great going forward and have not had to worry too much about shipping the odd goal, but it could have generated something of a Fulham comeback. Being ruthless at both ends is what the teams wants to be and so a clean sheet against Blackpool would be a pleasing sign that the Cherries are starting to close up the few chances that they have been giving sides as a glimmer of hope.