Jason Tindall couldn't hide the fact that Bournemouth were well below par in the first half against Derby Couty. The team huffed and puffed but it didn't test the Derby keeper and the team didn't look like winning anywhere near enough of the 50:50 challenges that it needed to win. The creative players are not producing and there is always at least one sloppy bit of defending per match which has more often than not ended in a defeat. So can AFCB get themselves out of the pit they are digging themselves into?
It is often said that playing in the Championship is a different challenge and in some cases a harder task as every team can beat you. We saw that against Derby who are a side who were second from bottom and AFCB didn't meet the game with the same grit and determination and were duly beaten. I'm sure that there are problems behind the scenes at AFCB. It spilled on to the pitch the other month with Stanislas and Surridge, the transfer saga with Jack Simpson is another sign that things are not running smoothly and why is Philip Billing saying he was fit to play against Derby and Tindall arguing that he couldn't finish the last training session. Is Jason Tindall fully in charge of the players?
There is not a lot wrong with this team. Most of the difficulties are in getting the players to be on the same page and to get them believing that they are capable of blowing teams away. But that is only achieved with hard work and determination and in some aspects AFCB are falling down. They are not finding things are going their way and rather than look to try something different they have perhaps got stuck in doing the same things over and over again. We saw a lot of long balls against Derby, perhaps because the pitch was heavy. But AFCB's game has always been quick passing and on the floor. It is okay to mix things up, but if you go long you have to aim to win challenges and AFCB didn't do that against Derby.
Okay, you can say some of the players are coming back to fitness. But you can only make these excuses for so long. Other teams are managing this period better, and it's down to AFCB's players to come out the other side of this disappointing period and makeup ground on what they have already lost. The team needs to come together and I have a feeling all is not well in the dressing room. Looking at the table now with the club in sixth, the players might just start to get the picture that they are not performing, and perhaps it is a good thing that the FA Cup comes next and they have a week to try and sort out some of the problems. The FA Cup tie against Crawley has been rescheduled to Tuesday 16 January at 7pm.
