AFC Bournemouth v Brighton

billythekid

billythekid

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AFCB Looking For Third Home Win In A Row

Following our game on Saturday afternoon against Fulham where the result was
a 2-1 win, our second in the last two home games and a very important and welcome three points. The second of our home games is the rearranged fixture with manager Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton which was postponed last September due to the death of the Queen. The game is at 7.45 pm on Tuesday evening and our team will be trying to make this the third win in a row at home after beating Liverpool and Fulham. It won’t be easy against a Brighton side having a very good season and in sixth place. If our side show the same fighting spirit they did against Fulham in the second half and had the home crowd behind right behind them, we could get something out of this game.

Our two sides only met at the beginning of February at the Amex Stadium. Unfortunately AFCB lost to a late goal scored by the Brighton Japanese winger Kaoru Mitoma when he headed the ball into the net. Brighton were 6th in the table after playing 20 games, AFCB were in 19th place having played a game more and 17 points behind Brighton.

Since the game at Falmer, Brighton’s next game was away to rivals Crystal Palace, it finished honours even with a 1-1 draw. Their next game was at home and also against a London club Fulham (who we met Saturday), it finished in a 0-1 win for Fulham. Again at home the third London club in a row were West Ham, Brighton won 4-0. The next game was away at Elland Road, the game ended 2-2. Brighton again within a short time frame met Crystal Palace at their Falmer ground, this time Brighton won with the only goal of the game.

Their most recent game was also at home and again against a team from London, Brentford being the visitors. The game finished in a 3-3 draw with Brighton scoring a 90th minute penalty. Three times during the game Brighton were behind, but fought back each time to earn a draw.

The last time we met Brighton in the Premier League was January 2020 at Dean Court. The Cherries took the lead towards the end of the first half from a Harry Wilson goal, five minutes later the score was 2-0 with a Pascal Gross own goal. In the second half AFCB went 3-0 up with Callum Wilson on the score sheet. Aaron Mooy scored for the visitors, to make the final score 3-1. AFCB have won their last four games against Brighton at home. Three in the Premier League and the other in the Championship.

In all our meetings in the league at home with Brighton, AFCB have W 26, D 17, L 10.
In all competitions, AFCB have W 44, D 29, L 39.

AFCB Team News
Hopefully all our players came through Saturday’s game without injury and we again will have a strong squad. Ryan Frederick’s is the latest player out with a calf injury and missed the Fulham game, otherwise Junior Stanislas is the only other known injury.

AFCB Player To Watch
After his second half performance against Fulham and turned the game in the Cherries favour, it must be Marcus Tavernier, but the question will be after Gary O’Neils post match comments on Solent is, will he start? But however long he is on the pitch, at the start or second half again, he is such a key player for this club and makes things happen, be it goals or assists.

Brighton Team News
Adam Lallana and Jakub Moder are out injured and Tariq Lamptey is near a return, but missed the Brentford game. Jeremy Sarmiento and Evan Ferguson are the latest players out with injuries.

Brighton Player To Watch
Their two wingers and joint second leading scorers, Solly March and Kaoru Mitoma have shared the 14 goals between them this season so far with 7 a piece, March has the most assists for Brighton with 5, Mitoma has 3. The other player
is Alexis Mac Allister, he didn’t play in their home game against us and is their leading scorer with 8 goals. Mac Allister had a very good World Cup with Argentina.

The Referee
Darren Bond is the man in charge. He was our referee in the 3-3 away draw at Swansea last season.
 
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Worried about Mitoma vs Smith …maybe need christie to start after his performance plus helps out more ?
 
Brighton are an excellent team. They were under strength against in the return fixture and were a lot better than us, albeit we were also missing players. A point would be excellent given 3 points against Fulham.

Agree on Mitoma vs Smith - it was a disaster in the away game. Fredericks injured (again) so not sure what other options we have that side.
 
It's a really interesting position. A defeat against us would make their quest to to qualify for Europe that much harder so they aren't playing without pressure. Meanwhile, if we were to win we'd put ourselves in pole position for the run in to survive.

More of that second half and I'll start to feel a lot more confident. More of that first half and I'll be watching from behind the sofa.
 
I’ve looked at the last 4 league games for Brighton. These were against W Ham, C Palace and Brentford at home and Leeds away. They picked up 8 points from these games which xG suggests was about right even if the draws weren’t in the predicted game. In the four games, Brighton have scored 10 goals and conceded 5, whereas xG predicted 10.66 and 4.79.

GoalsxG.JPG

The average positions of the starting line-up indicate that often Brighton play without an old-fashioned centre-forward, with March (on the right wing) being the furthest forward. There is also a belt around the middle third. In the only away game, against another team in trouble (Leeds) they played very high with seven players having average positions in the opponent’s half. In this game there does look to be gaps on the flank which may benefit Ouattara and Anthony / Tavernier, particularly their left.

Av Pos.JPG

Goals have been spread throughout the team. McAllister has 3 (helped by penalties), Mitoma and Welbeck 2 each, with March, Veltman and an own goal completing the list. Mitoma (on the left flank) has 3 assists, McAllister 2 and five others one each.

Fulham have had 79 chances (12 of them big chances) in the four games, with the left side slightly favoured. They have conceded 33 chances (5 big) with the clear majority coming from their left flank. For comparison, we have had 31 chances (11 of them big chances), with half coming down the left wing in our last 4 games. We have conceded 76 chances (11 of them big). Brighton is a team in form and a point wouldn’t be a poor result.
 
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In the away game I didn't think Brighton were actually that good, better than us yes but not by much. Unfortunately it was one of those days where we just dropped deeper and deeper and invited them on until eventually we cracked. Then because we had already made 3 seperate substitutions but only 4 subs we couldn't bring Moore on for the last 10 minutes to push for an equaliser. Tactical naevity both in dropping deeper and the sub screw up.
 
Darren Bond was absolutely clueless at Swansea last season. It says a lot about the quality of refereeing that he is now managing in the PL (although this will be only his 4th PL game this season).
 
redharry said:
In the away game I didn't think Brighton were actually that good, better than us yes but not by much. Unfortunately it was one of those days where we just dropped deeper and deeper and invited them on until eventually we cracked. Then because we had already made 3 seperate substitutions but only 4 subs we couldn't bring Moore on for the last 10 minutes to push for an equaliser. Tactical naevity both in dropping deeper and the sub screw up.
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Brighton had virtually all their best players missing that day, Macalister and Caicado could walk into any first eleven in the league aside from Man City potentially. Solly March has been one of their top goal contributors. If you’re expecting them to look anything like the side we played away then you’re sorely mistaken.
 
I think that our best bet in this game is to crowd the midfield as much as possible, if we give Macalister, Gross and Caicado the amount of space that we gifted to Fulham then we get absolutely hammered. As strange as it sounds considering we struggle to defend crosses, but we need to force them into wide areas as much as we can. And we then need to be very careful not to get overloaded in those areas too. This will be a very tough game, but one that we can get something from if we approach it in the right way. I actually think that sitting deep and minimising the spaces between our defence and midfield, while looking to break on the counter, is the only way we can get anything from this game. Approach it in any other way and we lose comfortably, this Brighton side are that good.
 
Hopefully we will be better attacking wise given we didn’t have Dom and Tav available. Expect more options off the bench - think this hampered us re substitutions up there so think we will have an upgrade on Pollock, Kingsey-W and Greenwood.

No denying, this is a tough game - but a point would be invaluable and a win would change the outlook considerably.
 
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I'd definitely take a point. I still feel we would have beaten them on the original date just days after Potter was sacked. I kind of feel we need to win as well, our home fixtures are going to be absolutely key imo. I can't see many away points unfortunately.
 
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From Wikipedia.

On 5 April, Partington scored his first professional goal. This was a crucial goal at the Liberty Stadium in the 90th minute against top of the league side Swansea City. Moments after, Bournemouth scored another goal from Jo Kuffour to win the game 2–1. The goal scored against Swansea when he was 18 years 4 days old means he is currently the youngest player to score for Bournemouth in their history.[3]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1643167010229039105
 
The thing that amuses me about B&H supporters is that many of them seem to genuinely believe Brighton is a club that is levels above AFCB and always has been. As if we haven't been the same level of shite for the vast majority of our shared histories. Are we all supposed to just pretend we've not played each other well over a hundred times going back over 100 years?

Doesn't plunging yourself hundreds of millions into debt to build a new ground erase what's gone before? I guess we'll find out if big Bill puts his hands in his pocket like Bloom did.
 
billythekid said:
From Wikipedia.

On 5 April, Partington scored his first professional goal. This was a crucial goal at the Liberty Stadium in the 90th minute against top of the league side Swansea City. Moments after, Bournemouth scored another goal from Jo Kuffour to win the game 2–1. The goal scored against Swansea when he was 18 years 4 days old means he is currently the youngest player to score for Bournemouth in their history.[3]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1643167010229039105
Click to expand...
Little Dibs first away game at the grand old age of 20 Months (nearly). :)
 
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billythekid said:
From Wikipedia.

On 5 April, Partington scored his first professional goal. This was a crucial goal at the Liberty Stadium in the 90th minute against top of the league side Swansea City. Moments after, Bournemouth scored another goal from Jo Kuffour to win the game 2–1. The goal scored against Swansea when he was 18 years 4 days old means he is currently the youngest player to score for Bournemouth in their history.[3]
Click to expand...

15 years ago tomorrow.

08-04-05 Swansea 10.JPG

Those final few minutes...
 
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