The Cherries' performance against City deserved a point

Despite the defeat to Man City there is more to be pleased about this week than the way AFCB played in the first two league games. A point against Man City would have been about right, and it feels that the team was cheated out of that with Sterling's late winner. But AFCB did miss a few chances themselves to get the win, and against such opposition you can't afford to have a day when you don't take every chance of scoring.

AFCB's players were stunned at the way the game ended after all their hard work.

What were the positives? Well, AFCB seemed more settled with playing three at the back and the way Eddie Howe spoke after the game of it being a system for this particular game. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see it again for the Arsenal game.

The tempo of the match was also set much higher by the Cherries than in previous games and not only did the crowd get behind the team, but the early goal just turned things up a notch higher. Unlike the Watford game, we didn't see so many passing errors and if anything it was Bournemouth players hounding Man City players into mistakes. Bournemouth just got at City and if they do that against lesser sides we could see an absolute pasting of an opponent fairly soon.

The stature of Man City certainly got the Bournemouth players up for revenge. I am not sure the intensity of the game would have been as high for any other opponent, but considering AFCB have never been City it was a target that really gave the players something to get into. After the match Eddie spoke about how it would have been a great achievement to get the point considering how much they had to try and break play up in the second half. While they ultimately came up short, the experience should put the players in good stead for subsequent games against the big teams. 

But the players have to get it into their heads that every Premier League game is as important as another and when you have no points it really does bring that fact home.

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The performance mattered more to Howe than anything else. The game demonstrated that he has not lost the players and that they are still fighting hard for him. Whatever, led to the first two performances have hopefully been blown away as AFCB can hold their heads up high after this match – Dean Court is not going to be an easy place for teams to visit.