Friday 18 May 2018

Bournemouth go into pre-season with a bounce in their step

You can't have a bigger high than a last gasp winner in a football game. Callum Wilson will have been delighted to end the season with a goal and a match winning one and while he will be itching to get going again next season, the whole AFCB team can be proud of what they achieved at Burnley and over the course of the season.
Back-to-back wins will enable AFCB players to hit pre-season with optimism.
If AFCB had lost on the last day it would have been thoughts of a season that was just full of trouble and AFCB had had a bit of an escape. Well, 42 points might not be record breaking but back-to back wins, home and away should not be sniffed at. Burnley had a strong home record and AFCB had never won there in 14 attempts so a mental barrier was broken with the 1-2 win and the Cherries had not won away since 31 January.

Eddie Howe will have ticked off a lot of annoying stats after the Burnley game. Bournemouth might not have reached their pre-game target of a top 10 finish, but they were only nine goals or a point away from finishing 10th, so it was not a disappointment to get as close as that.

Now the Cherries have to recharge their batteries and I think they will look at the Burnley game and believe they could play as well as they did in the second half to win more games next season. If there has been one criticism this season it is that AFCB have not found form for 90 minutes nearly often enough. The Chelsea away win was an exception, but Eddie Howe will be going over why it was that they got the preparation so right for that game as they did for the Burnley away match.

It is always better to go into preseason on a bit of a high and with the last two games adding six points to AFCB's points total there is a freshness of victory that the club can now carry through the summer and try and get the start they really want next season. 

In other news, Artur Boruc signed a one-year extension to his contract at AFCB. The Daily Record also reports that Stephen Gerrard would like Jermain Defoe at Rangers next season.

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