Thursday 30 January 2020

Have Bournemouth got goals in them?

Rio Ferdinand spoke on BT Sport and announced that Bournemouth do have goals in them. The problem is we aren't seeing them often enough to record sufficient points. It is a surprise that a loan player in the shape of Harry Wilson is Bournemouth's top scorer, but it perhaps underlines that the attacking part of Bournemouth's game still has to find its top edge.
Some straight shooting is required.
Without Josh King, I just don't think Bournemouth look as imposing to opposition teams. Callum Wilson and Dominic Solanke can go missing in games and the supply from Ryan Fraser and Harry Wilson is intermittent at best. Howe's immediate concern has been to stay in games and try to get to half-time without being out of the game. Such a strategy might be okay for games against the top six, but when it comes to Aston Villa at home, Bournemouth need to find their way to being on the front foot.


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Increasing the shot count is going to give the Cherries more chance of netting some of the chances, and I just hope Eddie Howe has been fine tuning the attacking force of the Cherries this week with a better shape than they had against Arsenal. It shouldn't need Sam Sturridge to show other attackers what movement is required to tuck away a goal, but he read the game much better than those around him and it is going to be hard for Howe to keep on ignoring that.
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Alex Dobre has also been scoring regular for the U21s and while youth is not always quickly rewarded at AFCB, Howe might just have to look at playing young strikers while King is out. It has to be better than playing Ryan Fraser up front. But if Callum Wilson and Harry Wilson don't manage to score you are left looking around wondering where the goals will come from. A few direct runs from Dan Gosling make him a better choice than a Philip Billing, struggling with back issue, in my book and for however much we love the passion and roughness of Jefferson Lerma, it is about time he squared his aim a little better in front of goal.

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Only Watford have scored less than Bournemouth's 23 goals and to be averaging less than a goal a game, you have to say the attacking part of Bournemouth's game is far worse than it needs to be to make safety easy. Bournemouth just may have to rely on a few more goals from the likes of Steve Cook and Nathan Aké at corners to push the goal average up to more than one a game.

Previous post on Cherry Chimes - Bournemouth can't afford late turn ups in games

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