AFC Bournemouth v Birmingham City

billythekid

billythekid

UTC Legend
New Man In Charge

The fourth defeat in a row and another under par performance against Sheffield Wednesday at home has cost Jason Tindall his job. It must have felt like a ton weight on Jason’s head when Wednesday popped up with a last minute winner to seal all three points. AFCB have another home game at Dean Court this Saturday, this time our visitors are Birmingham City. Jonathan Woodgate will be in charge of the team for this game.

Birmingham themselves are not having a good run of results since we last played them on their ground and won there 1-3, with goals from Danjuma and a brace from Brooks. Their away record has been better than at home. Away from home they have beaten Bristol City 0-1, Reading 1-2 and Middlesbrough 0-1. Drawn with Coventry City 0-0, Luton Town 1-1, Nottingham Forest 0-0 and in their last game against Wycombe Wanderers also ended as a goalless draw. They have lost against Cardiff City 3-2. Their home record since our last game at St. Andrew’s being W 0, D 2, L 6.

Our previous game against them was at home in April 2015 when the Cherries won 4-2. After going two goals down in the first half, goals from Steve Cook in the 39th minute and Callum Wilson in injury time, saw the teams going into half-time 2-2. In the second half the Cherries added two more goals from Yann Kermorgant from the penalty spot in the 48th minute and Charlie Daniels made the three points safe with a goal in the 74th minute and three minutes later Robinson received a red card for Birmingham City.

Our results in the league at home against Birmingham City, W 4, D 0, L 3.
In all competitions AFCB have W 12, D 4. L 3.

AFCB Team News
Dominic Solanke was injured early in the game but seemed to recover, but was substituted at the interval. Not sure if that was from earlier injury or tactical. No other injuries reported.

AFCB Player To Watch
Think we may see Ben Pearson and Shane Long get a start to inject new blood into a lifeless team over the last few games.

Birmingham City Team News
They signed striker Sam Cosgrove from Aberdeen in the January transfer window. Yan Valery joins on loan from Southampton. Marc Roberts received a red card against Wycombe Wanderers and will miss our game.

Birmingham Player To Watch
Jeremiah Bela in midfield, did well against Coventry City and Wycombe Wanderers in their last two games. Joint leading scorer with three goals and leads with four assists.
 
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Can someone please let me know if I want to watch this.

Can't decide. Hope springs eternal but bitter bitter experience says go do some shopping.
 
Woody's chance!

Begovic

Smith
S Cook
CCV
Kelly

Riquelme
Pearson
L Cook
Stanislas

Long
Solanke

Bench:

Dennis/Stacey/Mepham/Brooks/Danjuma/Billing/Wilshere/Lerma & Surridge

...a frshen up IMO
 
..didn't we play Birmingham away when they have a temporary manager ( Malcolm Crosby ) in place ?

now remind me how did that end up ?.................
 
......................Bego
Smithy.......CCV......Cookie.....Zemura
...................Pearson......Lerma
.......Brooks........Stan.......Danjuma
.........................Solanke
 
Personally, I still believe that Kelly and Cook offer the best centre back pairing given half a chance of forming a partnership. So that’s what I’d stick with.

Pearson, if he’s as good as Preston fans say he is, should be the next part of the spine, alongside Lewis Cook.

Solanke and Stanislas fit in the attack when available. The rest is fleshed out from there.

Wilshere obviously adds quality to the central midfield three, if fit, the squad seems to be built around this now with Lerma and Billing also options.

So Danjuma or Brooks as the additional wide option, supported by Adam Smith or Stacey down the right or Rico down the left. If you go with Rico you have options with switching to a three whilst in play.

I’d need to see more to think about throwing Zamora into the fold.
 
I'd sit Kelly down and tell him, after the last match, you're our LB for the next 10 games. Build on what you showed last time out. More and better. Then he can focus on that rather than swapping position every game and never quite looking comfortable in any of them.

I still don't understand what CCV did wrong to get pulled off in a game at half time when I thought he was looking decent and be out of the team since. Based on that, I'd give the S Cook and CCV partnership a go.

If it all goes mammaries skyward you can always have another chat with Kelly and say it isn't really working so let's make CB your position.

Right now though we're so desperate for a LB that can do that job I wish we'd make a commitment to one player so they can feel a modicum of security that they won't get dropped after a mistake.
 
kirsikka said:
I'd sit Kelly down and tell him, after the last match, you're our LB for the next 10 games. Build on what you showed last time out. More and better. Then he can focus on that rather than swapping position every game and never quite looking comfortable in any of them.

I still don't understand what CCV did wrong to get pulled off in a game at half time when I thought he was looking decent and be out of the team since. Based on that, I'd give the S Cook and CCV partnership a go.

If it all goes mammaries skyward you can always have another chat with Kelly and say it isn't really working so let's make CB your position.

Right now though we're so desperate for a LB that can do that job I wish we'd make a commitment to one player so they can feel a modicum of security that they won't get dropped after a mistake.
Click to expand...

No arguments on this policy of selecting a settled side, apart from that JW may not be here that long to make that promise. I wanted to point out a stat I saw which surprised me. Namely, who was third and joint-fourth on the assist table for AFCB in the championship. We'd all say LB has been a problem position, but 7 assists from there? There's only 3 from RB. Anyone else surprised by this, especially given Kelly doesn't take set pieces? There are no stats that I saw quickly for goals conceded down each flank, but other stats duels won / recoveries / errors were fairly comparable between Rico & Kelly and Smith & Stacey.

Capture.JPG

I've left other stats in the picture. Bego being our Man of the Match 5 times appear to suggest that he has won us lots of real points and that we were in potentially a false position earlier in the season. (which many of us would have suspected)
 
Matt Stevenson said:
No arguments on this policy of selecting a settled side, apart from that JW may not be here that long to make that promise. I wanted to point out a stat I saw which surprised me. Namely, who was third and joint-fourth on the assist table for AFCB in the championship. We'd all say LB has been a problem position, but 7 assists from there? There's only 3 from RB. Anyone else surprised by this, especially given Kelly doesn't take set pieces? There are no stats that I saw quickly for goals conceded down each flank, but other stats duels won / recoveries / errors were fairly comparable between Rico & Kelly and Smith & Stacey.

View attachment 5024

I've left other stats in the picture. Bego being out Man of the Match 5 times appear to suggest that he has won us lots of real points and that we were in potentially a false position earlier in the season. (which many of us would have suspected)
Click to expand...

I'm surprised Brooks leads our assists... Maybe I need to take back about how truly bloody awful I think he is at the moment...
 
Looking at Brum's stats this season,looks likely our charitable club will be giving the opposition another leg up.
Jeez! That makes me sound all cherrybright!
 
Matt Stevenson said:
No arguments on this policy of selecting a settled side, apart from that JW may not be here that long to make that promise. I wanted to point out a stat I saw which surprised me. Namely, who was third and joint-fourth on the assist table for AFCB in the championship. We'd all say LB has been a problem position, but 7 assists from there? There's only 3 from RB. Anyone else surprised by this, especially given Kelly doesn't take set pieces? There are no stats that I saw quickly for goals conceded down each flank, but other stats duels won / recoveries / errors were fairly comparable between Rico & Kelly and Smith & Stacey.

View attachment 5024

I've left other stats in the picture. Bego being our Man of the Match 5 times appear to suggest that he has won us lots of real points and that we were in potentially a false position earlier in the season. (which many of us would have suspected)
Click to expand...
I would say your observations on RB assists is skewed by David Brooks, who had been responsible for a lot of things not working down the right, plus Stacey being out for a while.

I get your point on Bego, but it's a double sided coin, is it not, a team who relies on a striker to be above average is still in a false position without his goals. Someone has to be responsible for the league position, either outstanding by a few or generally good by all. Was Liverpool winning league a false position because van dyk was so good, and they are now where they should be?

Talking of stats, heard the phrase 'idea pass' today as a stat. Any clue what these measure. Is it when a player makes a pass that forces their team mate to move into a better position that they were not headed to, i.e there's the space, go get it and attack , as opposed to pass to or worse behind someone which slows down play.
 
All fair points. Some comments, again with the caveat that I'm certainly not an expert. I like looking at stats to try and help me understand the game more and enjoy reading people's considered take on it, always happy to learn. I also realise that stats can't distil moments of genius such as Maradona's goal in 86 vs England.

Agree with Brooks' recent form, the first minute chance vs Shef W was partly due to him trying a trick in a dangerous position. Stacey seems to bomb down the right and be overlooked or the ball is delayed too often. Disclaimer, we like Stacey, my son must be one of the few to have 'Stacey 17' on one of his kits. The stats on assists and defensive attributes did make me reconsider whether the left back position was our biggest weakness as we all thought. It is easy to get carried away with preconceptions in the heat of the game. A comment in the secret footballer book that stayed with me is that when the crowd groan when a midfielder plays it into space to no-one, it is more likely to have been because a man hasn't made the run that had been worked on in training, not because the person playing the ball (who gets the stick) was at fault.

Re Bego, maybe 'below our initial expectations', is better phrasing than 'false position', although it depends whether you think his form is sustainable, or whether we've been lucky. For instance, for that first minute chance versus Wednesday, was it more good goalkeeping or bad finishing? Whichever, I'd imagine that if we'd have known at the start of the season that Bego would be our most often man of the match up to February we'd have been worried.

We are all probably biased, screaming for a pen if our man is tackled whilst telling the opposition player to get up in identical circumstances. That's why I like xG so much, it does give some objective view of who the better team, was and what was a 'fair' result. I've thought of another 'interesting' plot, I'll add to the next post.

I haven't heard of an idea pass and it seems hard to measure, but obviously sounds a better bet (apart from if we lose the ball in a dangerous position) than the safe side to side. Subjective stats don't help much IMO. There was a subjective measure on football critic that I didn't post last time, but according
to them our highest ranked player has been Mepham which didn't chime with what I've been watching. (Bego 2nd, S Cook 3rd).
 
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