Wednesday, 18 March 2020

Howe can only concentrate on his players and preparing for Newcastle United

The current situation is difficult for everyone. We got a small insight into what it might be like for Eddie Howe though, as he broke his silence at long last on AFCBTV. Eddie Howe was keen to be seen to support the Premier League's decision for the suspension of the league and yet he was perhaps not going to take his foot off the pedal in terms of his preparations for future games, which could theoretically come as quickly as 4 April for AFCB.
The Newcastle game may seem a long way off but Eddie Howe has to start preparing for it just in case.
Eddie explained how the training ground was strangely quiet and that football had to all intense and purposes stopped at Dean Court. Keeping the players fit is going to be somewhat out of Eddie's control, with the exception of the players having their own personal fitness schedules to try and stick to. We might have thought that Eddie would be twiddling his thumbs under such circumstances, but that would be very far from the truth.

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The research goes on. Preparing for Newcastle United, whether it happens or not on 4 April is the best way that Howe and his staff can focus their minds on a positive way forward. It makes the thought process simple and undistracted with worries about the fans and health of everyone which are constantly on everyone's minds, but it gives an escape from what we all know is happening and gives Howe a chance to do something that is familiar to him, and in that way probably relaxing for him.

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While the Newcastle United game may seem a million miles away from us, it is good to know that the club is doing all it can to be prepared. The addition of a couple of players returning to fitness who might not have been available for the Crystal Palace and Wolves game could be very important for Bournemouth. But time spent now on preparation and goals to achieve, are likely to make all the difference if the season does play to a finish in the summer.

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On other news, UEFA not only postponed the European Championships until 2021 but has somehow tried to insist that all domestic leagues will be completed by 27 June 2020.

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Tuesday, 17 March 2020

Begovic anticipates summer feast of football

While there are all the negative thoughts swelling around how to deal with COVID-19, Asmir Begovic has spoken out on saying how we can use the period when sport returns to fall back in love with football. He doesn't want a null and void season but rather fancies a football feast with multiple games every week.
Begovic keeps his eye on the Premier League even though he is currently playing in Italy.
I like Begovic's optimisim. Perhaps goalkeepers are more prone to get excited about many games in a week as they don't have to do quite as much running around as the outfield players. The on loan Begovic, at Inter Milan, is right about one thing though - playing behind closed doors is just not great for the players or the fans. It is important that the football authorities understand that the fans are an important part of the game. If they don't get that then we might as well as by online subscriptions and forget about turning up at our local ground. Armchair football is not what supporters live for all the time. You can't beat watching your team play in front of you and that's what we want to get back to when it is safe to do so.

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It will be all ears on the UEFA meeting when we hear what their thoughts will be, but it is great to hear as many views as possible in this time that we have before early-April to try and make sure the right decisions are made. 

Optimism aside, we have a long way to go  to get to that stage of seeing games in the Premier League again with the government not supporting mass events with policing or health care, as well as advocating social distancing, and I am sure more important things are on most people's minds at the moment. Football can take a rest and we could find that some good comes out of this period, even if it doesn't seem like that at the moment.

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In other news, Media Referee is claiming that Napoli are keen on taking Nathan Aké in the summer to Serie A.
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Monday, 16 March 2020

To be relegated without completing the season can't be fair

There would be quite a few Southampton fans smirking if Bournemouth were to be relegated on goal difference with the table frozen as it is at the moment after 29 games. Oliver Holt suggested that it would be absurd to make the season null and void and writing in the Daily Mail suggests that Norwich City, Aston Villa and AFC Bournemouth should be relegated and Liverpool would be crowned champions.
Mass gatherings are likely to be banned in the UK this week, perhaps today. 
That would cause lots of legal battles in my opinion. The Premier League season is made up of 38 games and each team plays each other home and away. Some teams would have played different teams up to this stage and many of them in the top six, whereas others may still have harder fixtures to come. So to let the season end now and the tables stand would be an injustice. Aston Villa still have a game in hand. If the teams were able to restart and play in April we could see a very different table at the bottom of the league after just one more game. AFC Bournemouth and Aston Villa could well then be out of the bottom three.
Also imagine how angry clubs like Charlton Athletic and Tranmere of the Championship and League One would also feel if they were relegated on a frozen table from 13 March 2020 when the decision to stop playing football in the English Football League was made.



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 I hope the authorities take a balanced view of how best to conclude matters. I could well imagine the season when it starts with nine/10 or so games to go being used like a pre-season. Once it is over the teams can be relegated and promoted and after a couple of weeks break the new season could begin, perhaps playing some times twice a week. Perhaps the European competitions could be modified to have fewer games as well with just the title holders taking part - I know it would mean less revenue for the game, but something will have to give somewhere.
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The weeks ahead are going to be full of suggestions that fans desire that would suit heir club and not others. A bigger problem will just be trying to keep the current 91 league clubs in business. An extended summer break will be disruptive to the Premier League but perhaps catastrophic for the lower league clubs.

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Sunday, 15 March 2020

How easy will it be to restart the league in early April?

With Bournemouth's players not set to come back to training until 23 March, they'll have some 10 days to try and keep their fitness levels up with their personal training schedules that they have been sent home with. COVID-19 is not suddenly going to let up though and even training in groups could be something that is not advised come late March.
It may be a long time before we see this many people around Dean Court.
We are in unprecedented times. The cancellation of football has a lot of knock on problems for those who work for the game and suddenly will have a lack of income. It's not the players in the Premier League that will suffer, but the lower leagues and the men and women that do the jobs around games that will really feel the financial impact.

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But for the players that Bournemouth have, it is going to be mentally challenging to keep focussed and dedicated with all the news that is swirling about on whether the season should continue or not. Even when they may be ready to come back other teams might not be in the same position with a number of players not yet fit to play.
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If the players do keep their fitness levels going and do come back and are ready to play at the start of April, it will be a remarkable effort. This won't seem like a normal international break. There are things going on that have already affected the club with five employees in self-isolation, and who knows if more relatives will catch this pandemic in the days and weeks to come. I don't think this is a switch that the Premier League can just turn on and off. As time goes by there will be more and more pressure for clarity of how things can restart and more and more questions coming from clubs that are not feeling ready to resume.
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We could be in a very different situation come the end of March if matters get worse as expected. Getting to games could be just as hard as trying to catch a flight to certain destinations. This could be an extended holiday period for football and we might not see anther game until late summer or even the autumn.

It will be a big day next Thursday when UEFA has to decide what happens with the European Championship, which is likely to be postponed until next year. Then they may well start trying to sort out what happens with the Champions League and Europa League. I'd imagine the Premier League and other European League would have to follow the lead of what will happen with these major fixtures and whether this does free up time to complete the domestic leagues, or whether COVID-19 makes trying to complete the fixture list an impossibility.

 The Premier League may have to make a definitive call on 3 April, because the players can't just be training for a date wen they may or may not have a game to play.

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Saturday, 14 March 2020

Could the season be abandoned and save AFCB's blushes?

While the Premier League has suspended the next two weeks of games, there is no guarantee that the situation with COVID-19 will be any better after that period. In fact, it could be a lot worse. So when does the Premier League come to the conclusion that the season can be restarted? It could be difficult even going by advice of the World Health Association. If there remains nine games to be played come May, the Premier League could have an even bigger decision to make.
Take a Spring break lads.
My feeling is that if the resumption of the Premier League does not happen in two weeks time, I get a distinct feeling that the season might be abandoned. That causes lots of problems. There are TV contracts that won't have been fulfilled and while moving a couple of week's fixtures is difficult an inconvenient but possible, moving more and more games is just not going to be workable moving into the summer. 

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Some pundits have been saying award the titles and relegations based on what the tables show now. But that would open up a world of court cases from relegated teams that would have reasonable grounds to say they had not had a full season, and other teams had played different fixtures which may have given them an advantage with the games left to come. There have been suggestions that there are no relegations, the title is awarded to Liverpool and the top six fill the European laces, while the top two Championship clubs are promoted and five teams are relegated form the Premier League in 2020-21. But I just don't see the Premier League wanting more teams - it was always designed as a way of cutting the numbers of clubs in the top flight which used to be 24.

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The only decision I think the Premier League would be able to come to if they couldn't fulfil the fixtures would be to reset the table as it was back in August 2019. No promotions, no relegations, not titles. The season would not have happened. That would be hard on those who were looking to be promoted from lower leagues, but I can't see a fairer way of concluding the football in 2020 if COVID-19 makes it impossible for fixtures to be completed.
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Bournemouth, like Norwich and Aston Villa be saved by an abandoned season. It would be a first, but these clubs earned their right to a full season to retain their status and I am sure it will be in the contracts that they have to play a 38 game season to be relegated. Playing behind closed doors won't do it, because the players and managers are also coming under the influence of this pandemic.

TalkSpot were debating if the season should be scrapped yesterday:

Some fan views (ED - apologies for the four letter words on some tweets)






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Friday, 13 March 2020

COVID-19 disrupts football until at least April

I was hoping that matters would not progress so rapidly that the Premier League would intervene to postpone its matches, but the spread of COVID-19 has had a dramatic effect on the sporting calendar. No matches until at least 3 April 2020, will have some fans disappointed but lives are at stake and among Bournemouth football club Artur Boruc and four staff members have been self-isolating as possible coronavirus cases.

Arur Boruc was named among those who might have caught COVID-19.
Eddie Hoe's press conference for the Crystal Palace game never took place with these events taking the football world apart. The Guardian newspaper ha reported that clubs in the Premier League so far having taken the guidelines on self-isolating players or staff include - : Arsenal, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Everton, Leicester, Manchester City and Watford. In such circumstances football was never going to go ahead this weekend. It is a shock that it took the Premier league to make the decision, while mass gatherings are still being permitted in the UK at the moment.
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What it means for fixture congestion and rescheduling is hard to tell. AFCB will remain in the bottom three until at least the star of April now and the season could go on to the end of June or even enter July. The clubs will also need to work out what is happening with tickets for games and fans will need to adjust their travel plans. AFCB has given its advice for supporters.

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I am not sure how much news there will be on the Cherry Chimes over the next few weeks. I haven't missed a post in seven year, but it could be a testing period depending on what news filters out on how players are managing to keep fit and prepare for the restart of the Premier League. It does of course give more time for Steve Cook and others to try and get back from their injuries. UTCIAD!

 A speedy recovery to AFCB staff and Artur Boruc and all others that have contracted symptoms of COVID-19.
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Bournemouth owe Palace a football lesson

The last time Crystal Palace met AFC Bournemouth, it felt like the Cherries were robbed of three precious points with a sucker punch from a 10-man team. Bournemouth may have been over confident, they may have expected to win when they had the man advantage, but they left the back door open when pressing forward and were undone by Jeffry Schlupp. It has to be different this time.
Bournemouth fan will hope Palace don't do the double over them.
Eddie Howe may be hoping that Palace do keep 11 men on the pith at Dean Court. Bournemouth don't do so badly when they go man to man against Palace, but this game is perhaps the first of several games where Bournemouth know they really can't fail to pick up something from the game. That means the pressure is on more than ever and Howe still has to get the players to play their open, fast-moving game, if they are to stretch this Palace side that doesn't concede often.

The wide players are going to be extra important I feel. We have seen David Brooks back in training, but it is likely that he will be put on the bench for an introduction in the second half and Aarnaud Danjuma is perhaps another player that Eddie may put on the bench. It would give Howe more chance to tell Ryan Fraser, and perhaps Junior Stanislas, to put everything they have into the first half, knowing that there is great back up for the second 45 minutes. With Josh King also perhaps on the bench, Howe will have more options than usual going forward if he just starts with Callum Wilson up front. My feeling is that Josh will start though with Callum if he is able to.

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After all, Bournemouth need goals and they need fire power on the pitch. If Bournemouth can win possession well in the wide areas then Palace could be vulnerable, but it's clear that they are also good on the wings with Zaha and Ajew, while Van Aanholt is very adept at making overlaps. Kouyate has been the player catching the eye in recent matches for Palace, but we'll have to hope that Lerma can keep on top of him without making too many fouls. If Bournemouth can play their game they are well capable of scoring a hatful of goals at home, and the club really needs a result like that now to give it a big lift as the run-in starts in earnest.

 AFCB Home Form
DLWWD

 Crystal Palace Away Form
DDLLW

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