Thursday 29 November 2012 17:33, UK
Bournemouth midfielder Eunan O'Kane believes the tempo Eddie Howe's teams play at explains why the manager has been so successful.
Howe, who only turned 35 on Thursday, left Burnley to return to the south coast for family reasons in October and prepares to hit the 200-game mark at Carlisle this weekend. He has overseen a 10-game unbeaten run which has rocketed the Cherries up the npower League One table and into 10th position. Howe's first spell with the Cherries saw his side win 50 per cent of their matches and clinch promotion to League One and he lost just 34 times in 87 games as boss of Championship outfit Burnley, statistics that are no surprise to O'Kane having spent the last two months under Howe's tutelage. "You can see why he has been so successful," he said. "He sets his team up in a certain way and makes it clear what he wants. I think the biggest thing is that his sides play at such a high tempo. "He expects so much from his players when they don't have the ball that it is nearly impossible not to win if you do that. He gets players to close down the ball at such a terrific rate that if anyone isn't doing that, even the likes of David James who is an England international, then he'll let you know about it. "That is a really big part of why he has been such a successful manager."
