Bournemouth Fan View: Do we have the bottle for a relegation battle?

We are mere infinitesimal specks hanging onto a marble that is part of an universe that is constantly expanding. This is the type of thing I tell myself to help myself cope after AFC Bournemouth lose a game.

I’ve being doing it a lot recently. It’s not helping.

Our latest defeat to West Bromwich Albion – 2-1 at the Hawthorns – was another depressing chapter in a season that’s gone downhill faster than Ivan Origone (look him up).

Now in isolation this defeat might not seem to bad, with WBA in decent form – we even pushed them close at the end, and could have snatched an equaliser at the death. Sadly after seven defeats in our last ten games this isn’t really the time for tight defeats. Now is the time for performances where we roll our sleeves up and dig in, scraping points together any way we can.

This team just don’t seem the scrapping types though, and that’s incredibly worrying considering that we are now firmly ensconced in a relegation battle.

We still seem to be playing wide open football in the naive belief that our attack can simply outscore the opposition and compensate for our creaky back four. Newsflash – it can’t.

The fact we went 1-0 up early on against Tony Pulis’s side didn’t fool any AFC Bournemouth fans either, as far too many times this season we’ve thrown away leads – and this time was no different.

Some might argue we were unfortunate with the equaliser, with Craig Dawson’s strike being deflected past Artur Boruc. Sadly that doesn’t take into account the fact that Charlie Daniels turned away when looking to block the shot – if he stands his ground the outcome might have been very different.

Although I don’t doubt the players are trying, they don’t seem to have the necessary grit to be able to hold out against any opponent at this level. The only time we’ve really shown any such qualities was against Stoke City, and even then we got some (much needed!) good fortune with a penalty being saved.

The second goal against WBA was obviously a huge clanger from Artur Boruc, who has gone from looking like a proper goalkeeper earlier this season (see my gushing piece on him back in October) to being a complete liability.

Whether the rumours of our interest in Asmir Begovic have messed with his head I’m not sure, but I fear we can’t be relying on the Polish international to bail us out of games any more – as on recent form he’s the worst stopper in the Premier League. If we had swapped keepers with WBA’s Ben Foster the final result on Saturday could have been very different.

Other than the goals conceded it’s the way our player’s heads dropped after the equaliser that was a huge concern though. It’s understandable to a degree considering our recent form, but yesterday we needed to show fight and a never-die spirit – and there were far too few players that looked like they really believed we could get a result after falling behind.

To avoid this post being a completely miserable moan-fest there were a few individuals in the squad that looked like they were up a for a fight however. Surprisingly the two centre backs, Steve Cook and Tyrone Mings, were the highlights.

Mings in particular has come in for some criticism since coming into the team, but after being plunged into the deep end due to our lack of defensive options – he was a left-back before his injury remember – he put in some vital blocks and tackles at the Hawthorns and looked like he’s growing into the position.

Dan Gosling and Lys Mousset also looked to offer something different when they came off the bench – essential considering we were looking tepid going forward for much of the match, dominating possession but displaying little cutting edge. Gosling made some incisive forward runs in his cameo appearance though, and Mousset shot from range on occasion – something we rarely see nowadays due to Eddie Howe’s desire to pass the ball to death (an admirable approach but one that restricts us a bit at times).

Ultimately AFC Bournemouth fans were arguably the most positive thing to come out of the game however, singing throughout the second half and doing their best to encourage our players to get something out of the match – this kind of support will be vital if we’re to get ourselves out of what is becoming an increasingly sticky situation.