The Cherries bounce back

The pressure was on to bounce back against Sunderland. A defeat last Saturday would have left the Cherries in the bottom three and without a home win. It was pleasing though that the players wanted to up their game after the Norwich defeat and were quick to show that last week was not a typical performance for them. That was underlined by the speed of the two goals in the first 10 minutes and the need to get in front early on certainly made the win more comfortable than it might have been had Sunderland been able to keep the Cherries out for half an hour.

AFCB made a fast start against Sunderland that won them the game.

It was the style of the win that was really what will give the players a boost. They sparkled with some of their first half play and stunned Sunderland. The response was simply to try and overwhelm the visitors and it was some time before Jermain Defoe had a chance to get involved, and seeing his chance come and go with Steve Cook and Artur Boruc making his job so much harder showed the determination that the team had to try and get that first clean sheet.
There will still be plenty of work to do again though before the Stoke City match. Sunderland did create a couple of chances and were perhaps unlucky to have one goal ruled out. Had the Jeremain Lens header been allowed it would have made it a difficult last few minutes for the Cherries and the early performance did not deserve to see the Cherries having to hang on to get a win. So while AFCB fans can be pleased with the three points there will be an intent to get something from the next game and not to ride an emotional up and down series of results.

In some ways this week may be harder for the team to get it right as Stoke will be determined after their disappointing draw against Leicester and we know that visiting the Britannia is not the easiest of games. However, to get something there will be a very big result and Eddie needs to get that across to his players now.