On Saturday AFC Bournemouth returned to the south coast off the back of consecutive away victories at Nottingham Forest and Birmingham City to host newly-promoted Blackpool at Dean Court.
Cherries head coach Scott Parker continued with a severely depleted side despite the signing of former England and Chelsea centre-back Gary Cahill on Friday.
Chris Mepham continued to deputise in the unfamiliar role of right-back due to Adam Smith and Jack Stacey remaining sidelined. AFC Bournemouth captain Steve Cook remains short of being ready for a first-team return so academy graduate Zeno Ibsen Rossi maintained his place alongside Lloyd Kelly at centre-back. Fellow academy graduate Jordan Zemura kept his place at left-back ahead of Leeds United loanee Leif Davis, with Mark Travers in goal.
In central midfield, Jefferson Lerma remained suspended and Lewis Cook remained on the injury list, so Gavin Kilkenny kept his place as the shield of the back four, with Philip Billing and Junior Stanislas in the more advanced central positions, however, the latter suffered an early injury and was swiftly replaced by Emiliano Marcondes.
David Brooks and academy graduate Jaidon Anthony provided the width with Dominic Solanke up front.
After the game, Parker told the Daily Echo…
“…I think it was probably a fair result on the scheme of things really. I thought for the first 25 to 30 minutes we were exceptional, 2-0 up and really right on the ascendancy and did very well and then probably died off at the back end of the first half, or needed half-time to come to reset a little bit.
“Then in the second half, moments in games, Dom goes through to maybe make it three and the game probably out of sight.
“And then before you know it, the changes of emotions in a football match that it goes 2-1, 2-2 and from there really we just lacked an intensity about us really.
“We struggled a little bit. Fair play to Blackpool. I thought they did very well today, I thought they got themselves back in front, caused us problems in the second half.
“So overall disappointed because I felt like we could’ve and should’ve won the game.”
Man of the match against Blackpool
Solanke
Brooks
Mepham
Someone else
"There's massive areas where we need to improve" 🗣️
Watch Scott Parker's assessment following the 2-2 draw with Blackpool this afternoon 👇#afcb 🍒
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) August 21, 2021
"We should have done more to see out the game"
Bourenmouths' @lloydkelly4 says the players are disappointed after they threw away a two goal lead
Listen to reaction from the #afcb captain, he's been speaking to @kristemple 🔊👇 pic.twitter.com/Nh0EWBKPhE
— BBC Radio Solent Sport (@solentsport) August 21, 2021
Written by NWCherries98
Last season we would’ve just had “we were the better team all over em 2 points lost” and similar references.
Honestly pointed out that a draw was the right result and correctly identified all the things that we as fans would’ve been disappointed with. Now we just need to stop them from happening consistently.
It’s probably not fair to judge Parker until he’s had the entire squad to manage, but I’ve already seen enough to know he’s a massive step up. There’s a clear plan and identity to how we’re looking to play. It’s not always perfectly executed as we saw today in the second half but I feel like we have an identity that everyone, including the younger players, fit into. – Join the conversation, click here.
Not good enough in the 2nd half today, but we will take the point and try to get back to winning ways next game🙌🏾.
— Dom Solanke (@DomSolanke) August 21, 2021
🇬🇧 Tough draw today, not the result we wanted, good first half, but still lots to improve, we keep going. #afcb 🍒
🇧🇷 Empate dificil, não era o resultado que buscávamos, bom primeiro tempo, mas ainda temos muito a melhorar. pic.twitter.com/2EZB8GZUtp
— Emiliano Marcondes (@EmilianoMarcon3) August 21, 2021
Not good enough from us in the second half today, we’ll take the point and learn from this!🍒 pic.twitter.com/uUKiSZ55fW
— Jaidon Anthony (@JaidonnA11) August 21, 2021
https://twitter.com/Jzemura3/status/1429161261594550277?s=20
Your say…
Written by kirsikka
Threw that away totally. Had opportunities to make it 3-0 which we didn’t take then gave away a silly free-kick from which they scrambled one in.
A learning experience for the youngsters today.
Ibsen Rossi was very lucky to get away without being booked for diving in on a challenge and taking out his man only for the ref to play the advantage and then forget to go back and give him a card. Then a few minutes later dives in again to give away a pen.
The second half was school time for Zemura. We know he has great energy and link up play going forward but was exposed quite a few times defending or misjudging the bounce of the ball in the second half. He needs to watch back the video and dissect that. He’ll improve on the back of it.
Kilkenny hit some gorgeous cross field passes in the first half but struggled at times to be the link man between our defenders and forwards when we were knocking it around. Also lacked a physical presence and was a little careless in potentially dangerous places with some short passes.
The lack of fit options on the bench showed again today. I actually thought Mepham, on a purely defensive level, had done very well today. A Centre Back at right-back that wasn’t often exposed is a good showing. Crazy situation that we had to take him off and put a Left Back there.
This is the conundrum. Having a slew of young players start because you’re missing 8 first team players is one thing but the risk is there will be games in which they will learn things and that can cost you.
We desperately need Smith or Stacey back. Kris Temple said Smith was there and that’s hopefully a good sign.
One more league match until Lerma is back as well. I think Kilkenny will do much better if he has Lerma or Pearson alongside him.
I can pick holes in the performances of other players but at the moment it’s all about the young guns and gaining an understanding of how much we can rely on them.
If we want automatic promotion, this was a game we would have expected to win. Especially after going 2 up. Still, on to the next one. – Join the conversation, click here.
