Match Day Bournemouth v Leicester, Tuesday 13th December 19:45

[SALTIRE]

Match chat.

 

[JimJams]

Close games last season, Bournemouth doing well, us doing poorly especially away. Naturally a 4 goal win for us.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Leicester just turned over Man City, with Vardy suddenly finding his shooting boots, whilst we're currently conceding goals all over the shop. This worries me, because after all we play like a poor man's Man City - we have defenders more comfortable attacking than defending and we like to dominate possession. If Leicester have rediscovered their touch and can replicate what they did to Man City against us, we will play into their hands.

What reassures me is how well we fared against them last season, with two draws. One of which should have been a win for us but for a late equaliser, the other should have been a win for Leicester and I've no idea how we held out. Where so many fell into their trap last season, we seemed to manage just about ok.

The ref is the delightful Paul Tierney who we have history with. Look forward to whatever baffling calls he can conjure up.

Would be interested to see Afobe start after he found the net a couple times at the weekend (all be it one disallowed) - we need a finisher. Worth a go and we'll need to shuffle the squad a bit over this busy period, with another game to come on Sunday.

 

[PDS]

Leicester, rather selfishly, decided to get good again right before we play them (Seems to happen a lot to us, annoyingly).

We lost to Burnley on Saturday, whilst better teams than us will and have lost at Turf Moor this season, it's the nature of the goals we conceded and how frightfully easy we made it for them to score that was both annoying and concerning.
Still, Eddie rarely let's us follow a bad performance with another one, he nearly always gets a reaction and if we score early today, hopefully Leicester's confidence from Saturday starts ti disappear. We're a completely different prospect at home than we are away and we need to show that again tonight.

The Nathan Ake problem persists, he was poor at CB on Saturday. I'm wondering if we'll move him into the holding midfield role, a role that Gosling is not natural in, and give more freedom to Arter and Wilshere too swarm Leicester's midfield.

I'll optimistically go for a 2-1 win, but my confidence is waning. All our results seem to depend on whether we score first and this will be no different.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Well this is a poor game. Flat and one paced from both sides. Leicester will feel hard done by to be behind, in truth neither deserves a lead. That said they've probably had the more sustained pressure although done little with it. We managed to break up the other end and score from one of those periods.

Vardy fluffing his lines when through having rounded Boruc. Morgan also tamely heading when well placed.

Marc Pugh having a good game for us. Forced the goal after the keeper somehow kept the initial effort out. But that was about it for us.

The stewards decided to wade into the away end en mass for whatever reason.

 

[JimJams]

Offside Mark, Off-bloody-side!

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Well that's one of our poorest flattest performances since coming up here, and somehow we've snuck a win. No idea how.

Heading away every booming ball into the box by the skin of our teeth, and those set pieces and long throws just kept coming and coming. I was sure one would go in eventually. Boruc kicking every bloody kick into the stand, Francis clearly unhappy at RB, all sorts of issues - yet we keep a clean sheet? Leicester will wonder why they couldn't force the ball in, but in truth they were a bit one dimensional, with no plan B beyond those endless balls in to the big lads. And fair enough, normally that'd work against us.

Ref was a homer towards us I feel, we've had some bizarre, downright infuriating refereeing this season, but after plenty of previous, Tierney was friendly to us today. That said, the apparent clamp down on Huth and Morgan's style of defending certainly disappeared quick. All sorts of shananigans in both penalty areas from those two. But that aside the ref generally gave us the balance of decisions I felt.

Have to credit Francis, Ake and Cook for the endless headers. What a scrappy win. After all the goals we've conceded recently, that clean sheet, no matter how it's come, is massive.

On to Sunday.

 

[JimJams]

Offside Mark, Off-bloody-side!

 

[Pagnell]

And back to normality.

1 point in 24 on the road for Leicester this season. The worst start of of any defending champions on the road.

 

[PDS]

The most pleasing thing from our perspective is the way we stood up to the aerial bombardment, so often our biggest weakness with such a small side, to see the game out.

It wasn't the perfect performance by any means, but we needed that. The way we controlled the ball first half was great, but the way we stood up to a reinvigorated Leicester in the second half was a different side to the team, especially with a back four we have all questioned.

It might only last a day, but up to 8th and nosebleed time is an amazing achievement.