Thursday 6 December 2018

Begovic saved the Cherries from Huddersfield barrage

While the ponderous performance of most of the AFCB players during Huddersfield match has led to much criticism this week, that can't be said of Asmir Begovic. Begovic has reached a level that I didn't think he was capable of. The stats at the end of the match say it all: Huddersfield had 23 shots and six shots on target, plus eight corners. It was obvious who had a busy night.
Asmir has had to be at the top of his game.
The best save that I thought Begovic made was the one that I think he knew pretty well nothing about. It was the first half corner when Alex Pritchard was virtually on top of Begovic and the goal, and he hit his shot with all the power he could generate only to see it rebound off the spread-eagled Begovic. Maintaining a clean sheet was important for Begovic, so when Kolongo did score you could see the annoyance Asmir felt.

There were many other chances for Huddersfield and Mooy and Depoitre should have made the game much closer with some of their chances. While the sponsor's man of the match was given to Steve Cook, there was only one man of the match for Bournemouth and it wasn't an outfield player. if Begovic can keep this level up he will start heading up the goalkeeper charts - he was already ranked seventh for saves after Tuesday night. None of the top six teams have a goal keeper that is higher in the charts, meaning to me that Begovic is an important reason why AFCB are challenging in the top 10 this season.

Advertisement

The problem for Bournemouth is making it easier for Begovic and giving him less to do each match. I believe the shuffling in central midfield players has been affecting how much protection the defence, and Asmir sometimes gets, but Bournemouth have to increase their number of blocks and start giving Asmir a bit more protection. 

Cherry Chimes to Camera: AFCB 2 v 1 Huddersfield Town

No comments:

Post a Comment

tag: