Monday 3 September 2018

A momentary set-back for AFCB?

Bournemouth fell to their first defeat of the season against Chelsea in September. The league table suddenly looks a lot tighter for chasing teams. The start Bournemouth have made though should be congratulated and should still give the players confidence for the games ahead. Chelsea were not so good that Bournemouth were defending for the whole 90 minutes and had the Cherries taken on of their chances before 70 minutes, it could have been a different result.
Chelsea have dented Bournemouth's unbeaten start,
but how soon can Howe get Bournemouth back on track?
The next game becomes all the more important now after the international break. Bournemouth can either slip back into mid-table of can keep up their record behind the other fast starters. It is also crucial that they can gather points at this stage of the season as they don't have another top six team until November when they face Man United.

So this defeat against Chelsea could be momentary. Howe will want to get back to winning ways quickly and he has some decisions to make about which players have been the best players taking in the games against Chelsea and Everton. He made changes for the Chelsea game and he saw other players against Milton Keynes. He'll be wondering, did he put out his strongest team against Chelsea or should he have kept to the team that had been undefeated in their first three matches?

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The form of David Brooks is going to be an issue that Howe will know might go up and down as a player who is new to the Premier League. Jordan Ibe has been looking for that consistency that Ryan Fraser seems to have in abundance. Mousset and Defoe are perhaps not as close to pushing Wilson and King as Howe might like and improving their playing time and goal potential could be time well spent.

Howe's biggest conundrum though is in central midfield. If Lerma is his main man who plays next to him? Against Milton Keynes, it was Lewis Cook and against Chelsea it was Gosling. Was Howe just trying different solutions to work out which one is best?

These are the kind of problems that Eddie Howe gets paid to find the right solutions to and if he does the defeat against Chelsea will soon be forgotten. 

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