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Bournemouth Fan View: Josh King is the real deal
I was hoping my AFC Bournemouth side would be able to draw upon the heroics they performed at Old Trafford earlier this month when playing West Ham United at Dean Court this weekend – and I was certainly not disappointed.
In many ways our enthralling 3-2 victory over Slaven Bilic’s side showed even greater mental strength than our draw at Manchester United, as we fought against setbacks that might have killed the confidence of almost any other side stone dead.
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I’m talking primarily about the two missed penalties – the first blasted wide by Josh King, the second tamely jabbed by Benik Afobe into the grateful arms of Darren Randolph – with West Ham’s opening goal then scored almost instantly after the first spot kick was squandered.
But instead of feeling sorry for themselves our players continued to fight for every ball, determined to make sure last week’s result was not just a one-off – and they duly got their reward with a winner at the death.
Although the game was almost end to end throughout we deserved all three points in my view, looking the more consistently threatening team and I just think we just wanted it that little bit more than the London side.
Every one of our players put in a shift, and although there were moments where we lacked composure or class there was always a crunching tackle or a well timed pass following just moments later to make up for that.
One of the things that had every AFC Bournemouth fan buzzing when leaving the ground in particular was the display from Josh King. The Norwegian put in a performance that was truly breathtaking at times, grabbing a hat-trick for his efforts.
He has power – the way he audaciously shrugged off challenges from players like Andy Carroll and Michail Antonio had me laughing in my seat – but he is also developing a great all round game.
This is made even more unbelievable as just 18 months ago most of our fan-base were thoroughly underwhelmed by the striker. He seemed clumsy, ineffectual, and a ghostly presence on the pitch – not influencing our attacking moves but actively hampering them.
The way he has evolved in such a short period of time is astonishing, and he has clearly been working relentlessly hard to become a more skilful and powerful presence up top. His first goal was a wonderful piece of skill – with his other two goals showing a real striker’s instinct, being in exactly the right place at the right time.
Eddie Howe has to also take a large amount of credit for King’s continual improvement, with his man management skills clearly working to full effect on the Norwegian – the fact King ran to the manager after scoring the winning goal perhaps says it all in terms of the relationship the two have.
If there was any lingering doubts that King should be our main striker from now on then the last few weeks – where he’s scored seven goals in just five games – should have not only dismissed those thoughts but laughed them thoroughly out of the building.
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With his competition being the still unconvincing Benik Afobe and the rough and ready Lys Mousset there’s no doubt in my mind that King will have to be the player to take responsibility to fire us to safety – but as he did it last season, and he can certainly do it again.
If he continues to play like he did this weekend he won’t be on the south coast for long either. We bought him for around one million pounds, but he’s now worth well over ten times that in my view. Hopefully he can continue to improve with us for as long as possible however – he’s said himself that he’s “loving it at the moment” after all.
With Swansea City our next fixture – a side the Norwegian has scored against in our last three games playing them – hopefully he can keep his fine goal scoring run going too. If he plays like he did this weekend there’s certainly every chance he’ll do so.
