Howe is more than getting his message across

The starting line up against Sunderland was a shelling of players that had stumbled at Norwich City. While some of those players will come back into the team at some point it demonstrated that Eddie Howe can't afford to have sub-par performances if he is to bring more success to the south coast. It is great credit to those that came in that they stormed to victory in the first 10 minutes of the game against Sunderland and did not get a chance to show any nerves, but the real victory was Eddie Howe's decision to have a clear out and sharpen up players' minds as to what they need to do to get the points. The mindset was right last weekend. Eddie Howe got what he demanded from his team and that bodes really well for the rest of the season. 

Eddie enjoys the challenge of winning games and will have
got his message over to the AFCB players as they take on Stoke City today.

In comparison Dick Advocaat did not get a response from his players. They may have been on the pitch and were trying to take the game to the Cherries but they could not shackle Callum Wilson and Kaboul was the main one to suffer from that. I would not say that Sunderland's head's went down but they seemed incapable of being able to lift their game. There was no such feeling about the Cherries who seemed to have several gears to go between. We saw good game management and Eddie Howe seems to be getting his message through to his players.

While it is not great to have setbacks, AFCB are showing that they can pick themselves up and that when they have performed poorly they can up their game. More importantly, they trust Eddie Howe and that strength is what should see the team head towards safety in good time.

Today's game will see Mark Hughes in the home dugout and he will be on edge about the outcome of this match as another home game without a win will increase pressure on him. He has a full squad to pick from this week, apart from Ryan Shawcross and perhaps Mark Wilson if he fails a late fitness test. There will be no hiding if he does not get it right, so I feel that the Stoke players are the ones that have most to fear in this game, but it will need AFCB to be first to the ball in the first 15-20 minutes and to get Stoke to start doubting themselves. I read a stat that the Cherries had run the furthest so far of any team in the Premier League at 697km and if Stoke are fragile when it comes to lasting 90 minutes, as we saw against Leicester City, it will be Eddie Howe's management prowess that pundits will talking about again.

See you at the game today - safe trip everyone! UTCIAD!