AFC Bournemouth v Swansea City

billythekid

billythekid

UTC Legend
Looking To Get Back To Winning Ways

Last season Preston ended the Cherries home run of 7 games without defeat, plus a 4 game unbeaten run home and away. Last night they yet again spoilt the ‘party’ by ending the Cherries unbeaten run record of 15 games home and away, plus 5 consecutive wins at home. AFCB will now hope to quickly put last night’s result to bed and get back to winning ways when they have their second game in three days at home on Saturday at 3 pm, our visitors are Swansea City. This will be our last game before the international break.

Steve Cooper decided to leave Swansea City after two seasons in charge, he later became the new manager of Nottingham Forest. His replacement is Russell Martin who left League I side MK Dons, his first job as manager, also after two seasons there to take up the job at Swansea City. Swansea have made a number of signings, but more importantly they have lost their two top scorers from last season in Andre Ayew and Jamal Lowe who joined AFCB. Swans went one better than the Cherries in the Championship last season and reached the play-off final where they lost out to Brentford. Last season after 16 games Swansea City were in 4th position in the table with 29 points. This season they are in 11th place with 23 points.

Away from home so far Swansea City have won two games, 0-1 at Bristol City and on Tuesday night the Swans were the first side to beat Coventry City at home, with all three goals coming in the first 27 minutes, the game finishing 1-2. They have drawn two games, 3-3 with Luton Town and 0-0 against Derby County. They have lost four away games, 2-1 at Blackburn Rovers, 3-1 against both Preston and at Fulham, 2-1 against Birmingham City. At home their results have been better, they have won 4, drawn 3 and lost 1.

Our last game at Dean Court against the Swans was in March this year and AFCB won 3-0. The scorers were Philip Billing with a spectacular volley after 9 minutes, an own goal just before half-time and a late third with three minutes of normal time from Arnaut Danjuma.

In our home league games against Swansea City, AFCB have W 17, D 4, L 7.
All competitions, AFCB have W 24, D 13, L 23.

AFCB Team News
Jordan Zemura who is going to see a specialist about his ankle injury will be missing, as he was against Preston. Adam Smith is unlikely to be back for this game and hopefully will be available after the international break.

AFCB Player To Watch
After not really getting a ‘sniff’ on goal against Preston, Dominic Solanke up until last night had scored in his last 6 home games with a total of 8 goals, he will want to get back on the score sheet again.

Swansea City Team News
They seem to have a clean bill of health, so go into our game with a full squad to choose from.

Swansea City Player To Watch
New signings, Dutch striker Joel Piroe leading scorer with 9 league goals and 3 assists and in midfield Jamie Patterson 6 goals and leading with 4 assists.

The Referee
Tony Harrington who was in charge of one game of ours last season in the 1-0 home win against Watford. After a stoppage time brawl after a foul by Watford’s Pedro, it saw both Pedro and Wilshere for AFCB given second yellow cards and both players were sent off.
 
As we know Jordan Zemura will be missing and no update until he sees a specialist.

Other news from Scott Parker re injuries.

There was mixed news elsewhere in the squad relating to recently-absent Adam Smith and Junior Stanislas.

"Smithy's the same, he won't be available for tomorrow's game. Things are progressing well, albeit a little bit slow with him," explained Parker.

"Junior's back training, though he's just been back the last couple of days, there's an option that Junior may be available.

https://www.afcb.co.uk/news/first-team/team-news-latest-on-zemura-pre-swansea-city/
 
Looks unlikely junior will be risked, given his injury record, and only been back in training for a few days.
 
Quite simple this. Play any of Kelly, Davis or Brady at left back and we have a chance. Play Mepham there again and we will most likely lose. I’d also like him to play a more creative midfield this game. Play either Jeff or Pearson in the six position, and have Billing and Christie central. Anthony on the left and Lowe on the right. Let’s have a good go!
 
CherryBare said:
Looks unlikely junior will be risked, given his injury record, and only been back in training for a few days.
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Tbh he’s so injury prone is it any more of a risk to play him? He’ll only pull up in training in the next fortnight anyway. Might as well get some use out of him.
 
Would love Kilkenny to come back into the starting 11 and anyone but Mepham left back. That’s not a dig at him at all, it’s just that he’s not a left back. Brady is my pick so we can keep the CB partnership
 
Would like to see Lewis Cook there but not having come on as a sub yet, I can't see that happening.
 
Genuinely don’t get the problem with Mepham, he’s not a left back; it’s not his fault he was asked to play there, that’s down to the manager. I thought he did ok given the circumstances and was not the reason we lost the game. People saying ‘simply if we play Mepham at left back again we will probably lose’ is a little bit narrow minded.
 
The problem with playing Kilkenny was quite evident against Reading. I’m not going to begin to pretend I know how Swansea play, but if they set up anything like Reading did…you can’t play Kilkenny.

Coming off a loss, I’d make some changes. Brady at left back, Lewis Cook alongside Pearson or Lerma.

I’d be tempted to get Lowe central in with Solanke and have Christie wide…harsh on Billing though so may not start like it but would like to see it if the game was finely balanced later on.
 
blandford_cherry said:
Genuinely don’t get the problem with Mepham, he’s not a left back; it’s not his fault he was asked to play there, that’s down to the manager. I thought he did ok given the circumstances and was not the reason we lost the game. People saying ‘simply if we play Mepham at left back again we will probably lose’ is a little bit narrow minded.
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I agree and disagree in the same breath. It’s not the playing Mepham and blaming Mepham that’s the problem it’s how this changes the set up of the side.
 
Waz afcb said:
Quite simple this. Play any of Kelly, Davis or Brady at left back and we have a chance. Play Mepham there again and we will most likely lose. I’d also like him to play a more creative midfield this game. Play either Jeff or Pearson in the six position, and have Billing and Christie central. Anthony on the left and Lowe on the right. Let’s have a good go!
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Brady would be good. I would be surprised to see Meps at left back again. Switching him with Kelly may happen, though and I think Meps has earned trust for that this season. Can't see SP moving Christie even though I think it would work with him centrally. I don't think Lowe had any impact on Wednesday even when switched to play on the right with Stacey, so don't think Scott will start him.
DJ said:
The problem with playing Kilkenny was quite evident against Reading. I’m not going to begin to pretend I know how Swansea play, but if they set up anything like Reading did…you can’t play Kilkenny.

Coming off a loss, I’d make some changes. Brady at left back, Lewis Cook alongside Pearson or Lerma.

I’d be tempted to get Lowe central in with Solanke and have Christie wide…harsh on Billing though so may not start like it but would like to see it if the game was finely balanced later on.
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No Billing?? No chance.
 
DJ said:
I agree and disagree in the same breath. It’s not the playing Mepham and blaming Mepham that’s the problem it’s how this changes the set up of the side.
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I think I feel because it’s Mepham he’s a bit of a scapegoat. Centrally we were poor Wednesday, the left side was no better or worse then the rest of them.
 
Feeling quite nervous about tomorrow's game. Hoping for an impact, but something needs to change it Scott's thinking re: left back.
 
blandford_cherry said:
Genuinely don’t get the problem with Mepham, he’s not a left back; it’s not his fault he was asked to play there, that’s down to the manager. I thought he did ok given the circumstances and was not the reason we lost the game. People saying ‘simply if we play Mepham at left back again we will probably lose’ is a little bit narrow minded.
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I think you’ve misunderstood. Nobody is saying it as a reflection on Mepham as a player. It’s not his fault in the slightest that the side becomes totally unbalanced if he plays at left back, it’s just a reality. It would be the same if Cahill or Cook played there too. The way we set up is very reliant on the full backs making underlapping runs from an attacking perspective, without that option on the left then that side becomes almost completely negated from an attacking perspective. Notice the number of times Lowe cut in from the right and had no support so had to come backwards, in fact it got to the point in the first half where Preston were letting us have the ball on the left flank because they knew we posed no threat on that side. It’s of course not totally impossible to win the game still, but the chances diminish dramatically withMepham playing as a full back.
 
blandford_cherry said:
Genuinely don’t get the problem with Mepham, he’s not a left back; it’s not his fault he was asked to play there, that’s down to the manager. I thought he did ok given the circumstances and was not the reason we lost the game. People saying ‘simply if we play Mepham at left back again we will probably lose’ is a little bit narrow minded.
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It's no disrespect to Meps. He's done a solid job this season. Just that he's not left footed and not used to going down the wing. It restricts us to moving it centrally and down the right. I don't think people are criticising Meps. I think he deserves being moved to centre back and Kelly moved out to the left. But, the way we play, we need a left back who can link up with the left winger and Meps can't really do that through no fault of his own. It would be like playing Pearson as a striker. Good player but not a natural goal scorer. Meps is a good player but right footed and not a natural linking up on the wing.
 
I just hope the referee is better than that short tw@ we had the last game. It was obvious he wanted Preston to win.
 
Waz afcb said:
I think you’ve misunderstood. Nobody is saying it as a reflection on Mepham as a player. It’s not his fault in the slightest that the side becomes totally unbalanced if he plays at left back, it’s just a reality. It would be the same if Cahill or Cook played there too. The way we set up is very reliant on the full backs making underlapping runs from an attacking perspective, without that option on the left then that side becomes almost completely negated from an attacking perspective. Notice the number of times Lowe cut in from the right and had no support so had to come backwards, in fact it got to the point in the first half where Preston were letting us have the ball on the left flank because they knew we posed no threat on that side. It’s of course not totally impossible to win the game still, but the chances diminish dramatically withMepham playing as a full back.
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Exactly, Meps was restricted to passes over the defence to Lowe. Some of the passes were good but with a natural wing back, there woukd be overlapping runs. As Waz says, this is especially important if we are playing with inverted wingers and a right footer on the left wing. SP tried to fix this by moving the left footed Christie there in the second half. It helped but because Meps has not been trained to overlap on the wing, we were still limited in flexibility. I'm surprised really that SP didn't forsee the problem with Meps as a left back. It was pretty obvious we were going to be restricted right from the outset. Again, Meps did as well as he could have done so wasn't his fault.
 
blandford_cherry said:
Genuinely don’t get the problem with Mepham, he’s not a left back; it’s not his fault he was asked to play there, that’s down to the manager. I thought he did ok given the circumstances and was not the reason we lost the game. People saying ‘simply if we play Mepham at left back again we will probably lose’ is a little bit narrow minded.
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Totally agree.

Mepham was not the reason we lost that game.

Also, didn't we concede the second goal straight after he was substituted for Rogers?
 
blandford_cherry said:
I think I feel because it’s Mepham he’s a bit of a scapegoat. Centrally we were poor Wednesday, the left side was no better or worse then the rest of them.
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Disagree. Far more attacking on the right than the left. Defensively Meps did fine but we were limited in attack.
 
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