Southampton v AFC Bournemouth - 6 Games To Go

billythekid

billythekid

UTC Legend
AFCB Need Something Out Of This Game

After a wake up call on Sunday against West Ham, our team now go into their last six games, three at home and three away. We start with a short trip to the East through the New Forest to Southampton. On Friday night the Saints visited top of the table Arsenal and came away with a point in an exciting 3-3 draw, but at one stage Saints had been 1-3 up. This will be another tough game with our nearest football league neighbours who are bottom of the table fighting to stay up. The game at St Mary’s Stadium is on Thursday at 7.45 pm. The Cherries need to come away with at least a point.

Before we met Saints in October at Dean Court they had gone five games without a win, a four game run of defeats and the game before ours they drew at home. Ralph Hassenhuttl was their manager for the game at Dean Court and they beat us 0-1. Following that game they drew at home with Arsenal and then lost away against Crystal Palace. The next home game was against Eddie Howe’s Newcastle United team at St Mary’s, Saints lost 1-4 and that turned out to be the Saints manager last game before he was sacked.

His replacement was Nathan Jones the former Luton Town manager. Leaving Luton for Southampton turned out to be a ‘poisoned chalice’, Jones team losing all their home games, 1-3 against Brighton, 0-1 to both Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa. Finally 1-2 against Wolves. Away his side beat Everton, lost against Liverpool, Fulham and Brentford. It was the Wolves defeat at home that finally cost Jones his job, Saints were 1-0 after 24 minutes, Wolves were down to 10 men from the 27th minute but went on to win the game.

The third manager to be appointed since the October game at Dean Court was the Spaniard Ruben Selles, he was first team coach when both Hassenhuttl and Jones were the manager. He is on a short contract until the end of the season. Selles has seen his team win one home game against Leicester City 1-0, they drew 3-3 with Spurs and lost 0-2 against Brentford, 1-4 to Manchester City and 0-2 against Crystal Palace. Away under Selles, Saints have won 1, D 2, L 2. Saints have played 32 games, have 24 points and sit bottom of the Premier League table.

AFCB’s last visit to St Mary’s in the league was back in September 2019. That day the Cherries broke the hoodoo of never winning at any of the Saints grounds. Nathan Ake opened the scoring in the 10th minute, twenty five minutes later Harry Wilson made it 0-2. Eight minutes into the second half James Ward-Prowse brought the score to 1-2 from the penalty spot. In the 5th minute of injury time Callum Wilson made it 1-3 to make sure the Cherries had their first three points ever away at Southampton.

In all our league games away against Southampton, AFCB have W 1, D 4, L 8.
All competitions, AFCB have W 8, D 9, L 16.

Southampton Team News
In January they signed midfielders Kamaldeen Sulemana from Rennes for £22 million and Carlos Alcaraz from Racing Club for £12 million. Striker Paul Onuachu from Genk for £18 million. Winger Mislav Orsic from Dinamo Zagreb for £8 million. Defender James Bree from Luton Town for an undisclosed fee.

Southampton Player To Watch
Carlos Alcaraz looked a real handful against Arsenal and scored a goal and also involved with an assist. James Ward-Prowse is a strong all round player, very good at set pieces, the leading scorer with 7 goals. Out injured have been Che Adams, Mohamed Salisu, Juan Larios and Valentino Liveamento. Jan Bednarek should be available again after coming off against Arsenal.

AFCB Team News
Jack Stephens not available against his parent club. No new injury news or if Hamad Traore will be available.

AFCB Player To Watch
Hard one after the West Ham game and if we will see any changes. If we fast wind to our last away game against Spurs, Dominic Solanke scored a goal and had two assists and was MOM. Solanke had more shots against West Ham than any player from either side with 5 and also had one attempt hitting the post.

The Referee
The man in charge is Darren England. He was our referee for the 4-1 home League Cup win against Everton.
 
kirsikka said:
Paul Onuachu. Signed in January to score the goals to keep them up. So far, he's played nine and scored none. I think we all know what's about to happen.
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6’ 6”, strong at heading the ball, played a total of 88 minutes in his last 5 PL games.

But I know what you meant. :grinning:
 
Everything is set up perfectly for us to lose this one, isn't it ?
Gives them hope, puts us under a bit of pressure and we usually let them off the hook, we just can't help ourselves.

I really hope that I am wrong but even the most optimistic part of me is struggling to see beyond us getting nothing out of this game. Mainly because it's them and they suddenly looked pretty decent against Arsenal, so may well be coming into some sort of form just as we meet them. I also fully expect them to target our weakness at defending set plays and I'd be amazed if they didn't score one or two of them. We really don't have enough time to improve significantly in this area before we have to play them, so they'll know that it's the easiest way to hurt us.

Come on lads, please surprise me with a confident top drawer performance against this lot and all three points ! That would be massive !
 
I’ve looked at the last 4 league games for Southampton. These were against Man City and C Palace at home and W Ham and Arsenal away which are 4 teams with something to play for. They picked up 1 point from these games which xG would agree with, although it was predicted to be against Palace rather than Arsenal. Saints have scored 4 goals and conceded 10, whereas xG predicted 2.91 and 8.13.

GoalsxG.JPG

The average positions of the starting line-ups are below. It’s hard to read into any team against Man C who are such a strong side and who dominated that game. Against Arsenal, Saints played with a defensive line up, with two men stationed on the left to deal with Saka. Whilst the formation did gain a point it is unlikely that they will play so deep in a game which they will see is winnable, particularly as draws aren’t going to be much use soon. The Palace game may give the best idea of how Saints might play, although this was a drab game with neither side registering an xG above 1. Saints may have to be pro-active rather than condensing average positions with a tight midfield belt. Last time we played it was relatively dour (AFCB 1.04 Southampton 1.03) with Saints winning 1-0.

Av Pos.JPG

There have been 4 different scorers and three different Saints players with assists (with Ramsdale also contributing).

Southampton have had 32 goal attempts (4 of them big chances) in the four games, with half of the chances being created through the middle. They have conceded 60 goal attempts (11 of them big). For comparison, we have had 59 goal attempts (8 of them big chances). We have conceded 61 goal attempts (12 of them big). Neither team have been dominating possession with Southampton averaging 42% possession and AFCB averaging 49% possession.
 
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thegazzyb said:
I also fully expect them to target our weakness at defending set plays and I'd be amazed if they didn't score one or two of them. We really don't have enough time to improve significantly in this area before we have to play them
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It's been a glaring weakness we haven't fixed all season, so very much doubt 4 more days (or weeks) of whatever training we do on them will make a difference.
 
AFCB_Liam said:
It's been a glaring weakness we haven't fixed all season, so very much doubt 4 more days (or weeks) of whatever training we do on them will make a difference.
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If it goes to form they will surely score one or two set pieces against us.
That leaves us needing to score two or three goals to get the three points.
I'm not optimistic that we can manage that, although I live in hope.

So at this point in time, I think a score draw would be an excellent result for us and it would have the added benefit of not being much use to them in their current situation (y)

:utc:
 
Red_Dez said:
We need Lord Snooty to lock you in a NNM facility for 24 hours - I’m sorry, but it’s for the greater good
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He can lock me up too while he's at it.
I'm not intending to go to the game and jinx it for us by the way ;)
Also, me being there would give SDD someone to argue with, so he'd feel right at home.
I'm willing to take one, or indeed give several, for the team Snoots :p
 
stanthevan said:
We can't handle crosses so unless we put Kieffer Moore at centre back, a 6' 6" striker who can head the ball is going to cause us all sorts of problems.
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Their manager watched the West Ham game at DC so will know what game plan he needs

Personally would like to see mepham Kelly and senesi in defence with tav and vina as wing backs for this game. After West Ham, a point is ok at a venue where we often freeze and sets up leeds and Chelsea at home
 
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It's about ONE thing on Thursday...Passion.

WHO wants it BAD ENOUGH....owt else is out the window.

So basically it's a Lottery because NONE of the players come from or are patriotic for the respective areas..but ALL are on BIG MONEY.

Sorry but....time for Truth and tough talking !
 
Funny old game football and the fans, from an upbeat feeling just over a week ago, we go into the Saints game it seems full of gloom.

Saints have won two home games this season, one back in August against Chelsea and the last one at the beginning of March against Leicester City that had previously lost three games in a row and since that game they drew one and lost another four in a row including our team beating them.

So to try and put a positive spin on it our side have won their last two away games.

Cheer up. ;) :grinning:
 
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