Tuesday, 6 February 2018

Second half strength from Bournemouth

The second half performance of the Cherries against Stoke City might have been nervy to watch, but the enthralling way that they managed to make the comeback happen was very revealing about what the team now thinks it is able to do. The heads didn't go down when Stoke scored in that first half, it only made Bournemouth have to rethink how best to get at Paul Lambert's side in the second half. They found away to with pace and direct running for the most part, even if the winner was from a set-piece.
Second half spirit got Bournemouth through against Stoke City.
I suppose it was a similar story if slightly a different Bournemouth that had a strong second half game against Chelsea. There is something in AFCB being amongst the fittest sides when everyone is injury-free and the sharpness that they have to kill games certainly tends to grow when they are under pressure in the second half and in need of something just to get back into the match. Fear of losing can be a positive or negative emotion - it depends on how the individuals react to knowing that time is running out. Some will say the first goal that Bournemouth scored with Josh King was lucky, but that luck was created for the ball to come out to Josh by the way Bournemouth were asking questions and forcing the play against Stoke City.

There was much to love about the second half performance against Stoke and not just the goals. Jordan Ibe was at his best working with Ryan Fraser and he did a beautiful pass with the eyes that allowed Fraser to get a cross to Gosling from the byline before Dan shot over. Bournemouth don't always play with that much confidence, but Ibe is willing to try his tricks now because things are starting to work well for him.


I also thought Gosling and Aké were important in trying to support the forward players. I kept feeling that Aké is really a frustrated striker the way he wanted to get forward and help his team in the last third. He's great at making the extra man and getting Bournemouth on the front foot.

It was not such a great shock when Mousset came up with the winner but I suppose the fact that it came from a free kick, and it wasn't someone like Aké, but Mousset that got the header in was more of the surprise to me. Let's hope that Mousset is fully out from the shadows now as with Afobe on loan there is more potential for him to get some minutes on the pitch now.  

Iphone users- annoying ads scrolling?
For those that are still having problems when loading Cherry Chimes on their Iphones with fast changing websites springing up in your Safari browser, please go to your Iphone settings and in the Safari app delete your browsing history and check other settings of that app do not have pops clicked on. This should clear the problem - it has done on my phone over the last four days.

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