Bournemouth are fighting better

The scramble for points is really on now. AFCB can consider themselves slightly unlucky to have only picked up five points from their last three games, but they can't afford to be displeased with their pickings as other sides are scrapping just as hard for wins.

It's a fight for points all right.

We can see that Bournemouth are finding more form and they need to take that into the games that they are not as fancied to win as well. Brighton may have been a learning curve for Bournemouth's players to see how much other teams in similar positions are working hard. There is not a lot of difference between many of the sides scrapping for points at the wrong end of the table, and unless AFCB come out every week with that rage and intensity in their game we can expect it to be a close thing with relegation.

The fight was apparent in some of the performances we saw against Brighton. Ibe is now fighting to play in more games and while I think he does a lot of his work individually he may get more success if he can link more with players around him. You can see he is putting everything into games though and the same is true of Dan Gosling who has been full of energy in midfield. The pace of Adam Smith has also come to the fore as he has been taking on players better and getting into attacking positions with more regularity.

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The onus to get forward quicker is certainly something that has helped carry the fight and whether Andrew Surman is brought back into the side will be something that Howe will have to weigh up soon. Does he go back to the metronomic passing of Surman or keep to the running power of Gosling or Lewis Cook?