Cherries Cut by Sharp Blades

Bournemouth's slumped to their second consecutive defeat in a war of attrition at Dean Court this afternoon. Visitors Sheffield United were too strong, too tall and too up for it all afternoon and the hosts wilted under the pressure.

Eddie made one change from the defeat at Preston, O'Kane resuming his central berth with Arter while Macdonald stepped back to the bench.

The game kicked off with three instant moments of skilful flowing football that was a false dawn in terms of what was to follow. First Seaborne left Robson unmarked and he chested the ball 25 yards out and thumped a volley off the top of the crossbar with Jalal stranded. Straight down the other end and O'Kane burst through to feed Grabban whose first time shot was brilliantly saved by Long.

From the resulting corner Arter's angled drive smacked into a defender on the line in what was turning into an enthralling opening cameo. Little did we know that Arter's fifth minute drive was to be our last effort on target!

From that moment on, Sheffield United ground themselves into the game, playing with an intensity when they didn't have the ball that we couldn't live with. Clearly having watched us carefully they pressed right up the pitch with the two central forwards and wingers while the central midfield sat back waiting for the back four to panic under pressure and kick the ball anywhere. It worked a treat if we are to be honest for the next eighty five minutes.

The home support grew agitated at the constant moving the ball along the back before hoofing it high where giant centre halfs Maguire and Collins completely aerially dominated Pitman and Grabban. This agitation grew worse with the inconsistent and fussy referee who gave a series of bizarre decisions against the hosts.

As the visitors control increased they started to venture forwards more, Maguire was left unattended at a corner for Jalal to save his powerful header. We had no response and the games only goal arrived shortly after when Seaborne slipped and the abject Painter lost concentration to allow Murphy in behind. To complete the comedy of errors, when Jalal had blocked the winger's fierce drive he was allowed to run backwards, latch on to it and fire back past the keeper showing more determination than the four Bournemouth players around the ball.

If the goal would have infuriated Eddie than so will the play for the rest of the half. If you blurred your vision to who was in the dug-out it would have been easy to assume Groves was back in charge as the team played ever increasing triangles while heading backwards and then launching an aerial ball at Grabban. With both wingers off song and Arter and O'Kane in careless mood with the ball it was pretty grim stuff and resulted in no meaningful efforts whatsoever.

HT Bournemouth 0 Sheffield Utd 1

The second half saw Eddie remove Painter for the second game in a row after 45 minutes. Mcquoid came on with Ritchie dropping to left back. Painter has to have something about him to have played fairly regularly in the championship but it has been impossible to detect it on his two showings so far - he looks shot of all confidence with even a routine 10 yard pass an ordeal and he is as slow as the Brighton fans warned us.

The change spurred Bournemouth into greater forays forwards with Pugh and Ritchie a better combination but still the final ball was woeful - Pugh not producing one and Ritchie aiming at an imaginary tall target man and seeing them all headed clear with ease and no challenge. With Arter and O'Kane having to drop ever deeper to get the ball we twice in a row crossed the ball to one attacker and five defenders.

In an attempt to produce a result Eddie made further changes, giving Fraser his debut for Pitman with Josh moving up front and then bringing on Tubbs for Grabban. It was just shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic really though as every one was a like for like replacement so Sheffield United were not tested in any way and were able to hold formation and keep pressing. More than that with Tubbs, Fraser, Arter, O'Kane, Ritchie and Pugh in the forward line there was not a cat in hell's chance of winning any fight or any ball in the air. And we didn't.

There was one chance of not much note in the whole bad-tempered stop/start half. Maguire sliced a Ritchie cross onto the roof of his own net causing the only heart stopping moment in 85 minutes for the massed Sheffield United hoards who became the latest team in this ever-changing league to claim top spot. Let's hope it has the same effect on them it had on us....

FT Bournemouth 0 Sheffield United 1

Jalal 6 - No chance with the goal and generally distributed well

Francis 6 - Couldn't escape the double bank that faced him.
Cook 7 - Good dominance of the ginger lump Kitson.
Seaborne 6 - Solid enough tackling but couple of positional errors
Painter 4 - Like watching someone's Dad playing for a pub team.

Ritchie 6 - Lightweight in midfield but more involved at left back.
Arter 5 - Lost the battle and too many loose balls.
O'Kane 6 - Marginally more involved than Arter but still average.
Pugh 5 - Plainly misses Daniels as lacks pace to do on own.

Grabban 5 - Ran a few channels but generally quiet and not in box.
Pitman 5 - Looked a bit sluggish and not in box enough.
(Sub McQuoid 5 - Gave ball away too often and cut in too much).

Steve Cook You can't deny the greatness of our run but we have to face up to the honesty of the situation we are now in. We had £2m of attacking talent on the pitch and had two shots on target in the first five minutes to go with the one shot on target we had in the previous 90 minutes against Preston.

We used to have far more shots against top sides with players that were free so why would this be? There are a few factors becoming apparent, some of which should have been dealt with in the transfer window and some of which we can deal with now.

1) Like the Brit Awards winners list - we don't have a Plan B. We play the ball around the back then try to get it forward on the ground for two strikers who should play off a target man to play to two wingers playing on their wrong foot. The ploy is for them to cross and early and low for the two strikers to arrive. Once sussed, if a team is good enough to stop it we have nothing we can do other than swap the strikers with two more strikers who should play off a target man and two more diminutive wingers. It doesn't change the angle of attack, just the people holding the gun.

2) We are developing the smallest side since O'Driscoll left. There was a girl to my right who kept asking her Dad why they were so much taller and quicker than us. Good question!

3) We have no physical answer towards physical sides. Today we lost the battle before losing the war. Again though we don't have a Robbo a Bartley or a Fletch to bring on and say 'come through me first'.

I won't be popular for saying it but I think Eddie missed a big trick in the transfer window. We spent £1m on two right wingers but we don't have a striker who attacks high crosses into the box making wingers slightly superfluous. We also need a ball winning grunter - not maybe for every game but certainly for days like today. Arter and O'Kane were literally blocked out of the game and had no answer - so we rarely got the ball wide while attacking, just by going sideways with the wingers always facing two defenders by the time they got it.

I don't think we used our resources properly and although we will get away with it against mediocre opposition because of the huge talent we have in the squad we have to beat good opposition to go up and we were very easily beaten today.

In the last seven games we have lost to Walsall, Preston and Sheffield United, beaten Crewe with a fortunate penalty without playing well and our three wins have been against bottom of the league Hartlepool, an unconvincing performance against whipping boys Pompey and ten man MK Dons.

I may sound like I am doom mongering but when you look at the above a team with endless money should be in a better place - but only if the money is used wisely and I think we missed two massive tricks in January. On top of that we have unfortunately lost Elphick and Daniels - the latter of which was particularly key to the opening up of the opposition. Why then did we sign a replacement who even Brighton fans say doesn't attack with pace?

Anyway - another day Tuesday and an attempt to go for the result. I would try and involve Macdonald from the start if fit - maybe even in a five man midfield - we have been watched carefully and might need to mix things up a bit. Eddie is bright enough to have picked things up and I expect a change in formation or players.

Report by Neil Dawson

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