Saturday 23 March 2013

Eddie has to find a place for Ritchie in the starting line up

It was no surprise this week that Matt Ritchie was among the nominees for npower League One player of the year. He was the star player at Swindon Town and he has shown his versatility at AFCB fitting in at left back as and when required. Having hopefully recovered from his recent head injury at the Stevenage game and with Charlie Daniels coming back into the team at left back it seems that Eddie Howe now has a problem on his hands - surely he has to find a place in the starting 11 for Matt Ritchie?

Matt was a sub in the last game against Oldham although he did come on to win 22 minutes of playing time on the field. The difficulty arises in whether the manager considers Wes Fogden has shown enough to retain his place on the right wing with Josh McQuoid also  contending for that role. Ryan Fraser of course has an U21 Scottish call up so will not be available. If Foggy holds on to his spot having played well in the last two fixtures, will we see Matt on the bench again for the Bury game? This just doesn't seem to be making the most of his talents.

I would venture that with our low scoring power up front at the moment it might be worth considering Matt for a place just behind Pitman and perhaps dropping Grabban to the bench even though he made the goal for Brett in the last match. We know that Matt Ritchie is a great finisher and it would be exciting to see him in a more advanced position. He will be eager to get his scoring record off the ground at Dean Court and his control and fluency on the ball just might open teams up a little easier than we have seen in the last couple of home games.

So Eddie, please don't leave one of League One's best players on the bench. Let's see the best of Matt Ritchie as an attacking force this Saturday against Bury FC. UTCIAD! 

I feel this is probably what Eddie believes is his strongest AFCB team line up, but will he play it?

Allsop, Francis, Elphick, Cook, Daniels, Ritchie, Arter, O'Kane, Pugh, Grabban, Pitman.

Subs: Hughes, McQuoid, Seaborne, Jalal, Tubbs, Fletcher, Fogden

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