Cherries: James hails manager of the month Howe (From Bournemouth Echo)

Cherries: James hails manager of the month Howe

7:00am Saturday 15th December 2012 in Sport By Ian Wadley

FORMER England star David James believes award-winning boss Eddie Howe has provided Cherries with the confidence to regularly fulfil their potential.

Howe’s work since returning to Dean Court was yesterday recognised when he was named League One manager of the month for November.

Cherries have gone on a 12-match unbeaten run following Howe’s appointment as successor to Paul Groves in October.

The team’s form under Howe last month was impressive as they registered three league wins and two draws, as well as a cup victory.

That proved enough for Howe to fend off competition for the November gong from MK Dons manager Karl Robinson and Brentford’s Uwe Rosler.

Cherries’ current run is made all the more remarkable as it comes on the back of a poor start to the campaign prior to Howe’s Dean Court comeback.

James told the Daily Echo: “The manager has managed to give the confidence to the players, possibly through the way he conducts the training.

“What we do on the training field, you are seeing on the playing field. I think that is the main thing – the transition from training to matchday.

“In the first three games I was here, the team were showing a lot of talent and ability but, for some reason, that wasn’t being transferred to the pitch. Especially at Crawley, we seemed very within ourselves.

“Through different methods, which I obviously don’t want to go into too much detail about, the manager has managed to give the confidence to the players to reproduce what they are capable of doing on a daily basis. That includes Saturdays and Tuesdays, as opposed to just during the week (in training).”

Howe will be hoping to silence talk of the so-called ‘curse’ that the award is supposed to carry when Cherries host Colchester this afternoon (3pm).

Following a number of previous nominations, Howe collected the prize for the first time in his career and praised his staff and players.

He told the club website: “I really want to give the credit and the praise to the players for the run that we have been on.

“Full credit to everyone and that goes for my coaching staff as well. They are so important and do a lot of work behind the scenes and we have really got a good team.”