Bournemouth went in at half time at Newcastle knowing that 0-0 was a bit of a lucky escape. It wasn't that the Cherries had been overly poor, but Newcastle hadn't let Bournemouth play and the form of Ritchie and Shelvey was too hot to handle at times. Eddie Howe got hold of his team though and got things switched on in the second half.
Eddie Howe did not let that happen in the second half. Bournemouth started to also win the ball a little further up the pitch, which gave the Cherries' attacks more chance of success. The pleasing stat I saw was that by the end of the game Bournemouth had made 12 attempts at shooting and half of them were on target, which was a step up on previous games. Even the Stoke away win only saw Bournemouth make six attempts at scoring with three on target. So the team is making more chances at last and while it took Steve Cook's injury time header to break the deadlock, I though Marc Pugh would certainly have scored on another day and Wilson could have given Bournemouth a bigger win had his second half run resulted in a goal.
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So there were a lot more positives in this latest performance. The first half was lacking in the kind of intensity Eddie Howe likes to see from his team, but they found a better second half performance and importantly kept a clean sheet. I'm not sure quite what Eddie said at half time, but Newcastle may well have run out of steam, which gave Bournemouth more time to find their passes. The substitutions also helped as Adam Smith got on the ball a lot when he came on and Jermain Defoe got the Newcastle defenders thinking about him, which put them more on edge I felt.
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| Eddie is inspiring the team to pull out winning performances again. |
The speed of the balls up to the front were certainly quicker in the second half. By speeding up, it was clear that Surman and Francis were also not getting caught so much near their own penalty box. Some times playing from the back is open to being challenged and Newcastle did press very high and won a lot of ball in places just in front of Bournemouth's back four. Winning the second balls was also something Newcastle did well in the first half.
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Premier Talk - Is Moyes really a better choice than Bilic?
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Might be a good idea to continue with Smith in more forward role. This gives a bit better cover to Francis at right back - and Smith is capable of shooting from distance.
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