SON OF SOBS: AFCB
Well. That was a slog. A good job it wasn't too far awa- oh, wait.
Silly Sunday 2pm Kick Off
After our first win on foreign soil in a very long time mid week, we looked to drag ourselves out of the bottom three. We'd mostly managed to keep our chins up so far, but our largely good performances were quickly becoming overshadowed by our league position. We were already 8 points behind our tally this time last season.
Wilson had picked up a continental knock, so Teenage Timur started in his place with Brobbey on the bench. Rigg had a mint night on Thursday, apart from spooning a couple shots wide.
2pm Kick off.
There's no way of mincing words here. So let's crack on...
Bournemouth battered us within the first 90 seconds, which didn't bode well. In the 6th minute Tavavavanier struck. We put it on a plate for them. A shocking start. Woeful. We had begun languidly and not matched The Cherries' oomph on any level.
Enzo was targeted early on and was walloped by their backline. A resulting free kick led to Danso completely wasting a free header. I usually wait till the second half before I have a can, but today I might have to make an exception. It was looking like it was going to be a long afternoon.
Our midweek show had been encouraging for some of the up and comers, but the PL was proving a different kettle of fish by the end of the opening 15. Time for a can...
I could only find a Koppaberg class for my Guinness. It just felt wrong. The football quickly followed suit.
After a quick ball of the top counter attack, our defence fell to bits. Omar decided against intervening, Danso could only fall over to try and thwart the attackers run by falling over into him. Straight red. I wondered if I could put my Guinness back in the can.
Last season I'm sure I heard someone say 10 men can be harder to play against than 11. I'm an optimist, but even I couldn't see any hope. We seemed to have nothing. Huge gaps in our lines, terrible second balls and the home side didn't even really look like they were trying.
At this point we had to play like we had nothing to lose. The travelling RAWA seemed to still be in fine voice. The lads slowly began to press and kept the home side in the final third.
I'd barely had time to check the clock. 25 mins?! Good grief. I still hadn't touched my beer.
Nordi took a knock which left us with 9 on the pitch as he was sidelined. We tried another long ball from the free kick which led to another counter. Reinildo managed to save it with his balls.
Despite being the better team, some of the home players pretended to be idiots who didn't understand the rules while they harassed the ref for a penalty after the ball came off Nordi's leg and struck his supporting arm. Dafties.
Half time. 1-0. Bugger. Positives? I've still got plenty of cans left.
No changes at half time. In RLB we trust.
The second half began exactly like the first. A long ball into our box lead to a shot on goal within seconds of the restart. We had a positive passage of play before another blunder from Omar gifted the home side a second. Awful. Omar must have left part of his brain in Boston. He didn't even look up before he passed it. Maybe I don't have enough cans after all...
No reactions. Too much time on the ball. We were falling for the same traps every time.
If you've got this far - well done. l'd usually look to the bench around 60 minutes, but I thought we'd be better off saving our spare legs. I did say I was an optimist earlier, didn't I? Nevertheless, O9 and Diarra replaced Omar and Timur. I felt bad for Timur, who'd done nowt wrong. Omar... not so much.
After a long ball over the top from Roefs, Habib made an instant impression by firing a ball across the mouth of the goal. Luke failed to throw himself at it like a madman. Better? Meh.
Ahoka joined shortly afterwards. He's massive, isn't he? I'm just looking for anything positive at this point. On 70 minutes stats showed we'd had 1 shot to their 22. None on target. We were making them look like Brazil. Not 2026 Brazil obviously.
Our second shot of the match came from Enzo. We were looking for any magic we could get. I don't like xG, but we must have been in the minuses. When a counter attack came our way, we just didn't seem to know what to do with it.
Roefs had a bit more of a go at being a sweeper keeper and was better at putting in balls over the top, better than any we'd managed so far.
10 mins to go. Again - if you've gotten this far, your medal is in the post.
6 minutes of added torture. Not enough cans in Bishop.
A miracle it only ended 2-0. We had nothing going forward. We looked knackered and spent far too much time on the ball. I can't see how it gets better from here. We were lacking everything we had this time last season or even against City. A real chew on. Too many new players to get up to speed.
Chin up, crack on!
KTF,
GPD
