Early goals set a pattern even if they don't guarantee wins

There has been much focus on trying to get quick leads in games as this season has progressed. The team that scores first tends to go on to win games in more than most games and when your team goes 2-0 up it is safe to say that you can hope for a good day. It did not quite workout like that at Swansea, but it was still vital to get the lead and it should not stop Eddie Howe's team from continuing to take the game to teams.

Fast starts are good but the team must hold on better.

There is a different feeling though to games when, as we saw against Newcastle, you play a team off the park and yet can't score, and ones where you are two goals to the good and fully in control only to find the scores pegged back. For me the Swansea match showed that the Cherries were much closer to winning the game. I never felt that they would lose the match even with the scores being level at half time. The early goals had set a pattern. AFCB knew how they could hurt Swansea and they kept trying to imply that pressure throughout the game. With Newcastle though they never had that breakthrough, and in failing to get a goal it sets doubts in the players that they can score as the game goes on.

Scoring goals has been a problem of late as you have to go back to two months to September before the Swansea game to see when AFCB last scored two goals in a game. So to get two in the first half was a big improvement and demonstrates that the team was more positive in its attacking play than we have seen in a long while. Now I know why I feel so much more confident about AFCB. Goals have simply been in short supply and early goals have been even more of a missing link.