This is a fan’s personal view of AFC Bournemouth from the outside looking in. It reports on the daily official activities reported by the club and comments made by individual fans on social media and fanbase websites. Life as an AFCB fan is never dull. As a life-long supporter of the Cherries, it is the friendliness of the staff, fans and my enthusiasm for the club that inspired me to write this blog.
Talking the talk is not the same as doing the business for AFCB
Eddie Howe was clear that the players were ready. The fitness levels were good and the players knew how important the first game would be against Palace to set the tone for their Premier League survival. So how did Bournemouth end up out of the game in 23 minutes, and unable to put a reasonable effort in to try and pull the game back?
Billing might be back but the Cherries need more than the odd player back, they have ti play as a team.
The pressure of needing to do well was probably too much. They had built up the fact that they would play well and would really get into the opposition, so when the opposite happened they simply didn't know how to deal with it. It wasn't on the script that Luka Milivojevic would hit a screamer of a free kick from 25 yards in 12 minutes and have Bournemouth wondering what had just hit them. It was a disaster as Bournemouth didn't know how to reset.
Once the players know that the other team is playing superior football, they need a break a bit of luck or an incident to go their way to get the heads back up. That wasn't happening with no crowd for the players to feed off and few referee decisions going their way. In essence Palace grew in confidence and made a great second goal from their point of view, which just sucked any air out that had been left in Bournemouth's balloon.
It needed a player to get hold of the team and really nail on them that the performance wasn't good enough to be 0-2 down in the first 25 minutes. But we didn't see it from Steve Cook, Callum Wilson or Nathan Aké. Bournemouth need a leader and while I don't want to see Simon Francis return to right back, at least he shouted at players and let them knew when they needed to do better. I hope that some anger has been left off in the changing room and training pitch after the Palace performance. The players need to get it out of their system rather than just hoping things turn around.
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Bournemouth may be lucky they have a second shot at Project Restart away at Wolves, because West Ham and Watford are still in touching distance, but Bournemouth need to walk the walk on the pitch and not talk the talk before the game. Previous Post on Cherry Chimes - Has Eddie Howe run out of ideas?
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