Stoke City v AFC Bournemouth

billythekid

billythekid

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First Game Of The New Year

After the 2-1 defeat at Brentford, AFCB are away again, this time against Stoke City on Saturday at 7.45 pm being the featured game shown again Live on Sky TV. This will be the Cherries third game in a row away from home and their first game of 2021. This will be another hard game but hopefully our side can get back on winning ways again. At home against the teams in the top six spots, Stoke City beat Brentford 3-2 and lost by the odd goal against Norwich City 2-3. Stoke are in seventh place.

The Stoke City manager is the former Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neil. O’Neil left the Northern Ireland job earlier this year after being in charge for eight years to concentrate on his role at Stoke City. O’Neil joined Stoke City on the 8th November 2019, he replaced Nathan Jones who later became Luton Town manager in May of 2020.

In the Summer Stoke City signed midfielder Jacob Brown from Barnsley for an undisclosed fee. They also signed six players on free transfers. Two players from Sheffield Wednesday, the very experienced Scotland striker Steve Fletcher and defender Morgan Fox. Defender James Chester from Aston Villa, midfielder John Obi Mikel from Trabzonspor, goalkeepers Nikki Maenpaa from Bristol City and Andy Lonergan from Liverpool. On loan another goalkeeper Angus Gunn from Southampton.

At home Stoke City have beaten Brentford 3-2, Rotherham United 1-0, Huddersfield Town 4-3, Middlesbrough and Blackburn Rovers 1-0. They have drawn 1-1 with Birmingham City, 2-2 with Barnsley and in their most recent game 1-1 with Nottingham Forest. Lost 0-2 against Bristol City, 2-3 to Norwich City and Cardiff City 1-2. Away from home they have W 4, D 5, L 2.

The last time AFCB played Stoke City at their ground was in the Premier League in October 2017. The Cherries won 1-2, with two early goals in the game during a two minute spell. The first was scored by Andrew Surman after 16 minutes and the second came from the penalty spot from Junior Stanislas. Mark Hughes was their manager at the time and after just under five years in charge he was sacked in the following January and at the end of that season Stoke City were relegated.

In league games played away against Stoke City, AFCB have W 3, D 2, L 8.
Games home and away, league and cup, AFCB have W 8, D 7, L 11.

Stoke City Team News
One very important player that is missing for them is Tyrese Campbell, he suffered a bad injury against Cardiff City and looks like he could miss the rest of the season. He is still the leading scorer with 6 goals and also has the most assists with 5. Other players missing from their last game were Steve Fletcher who has scored 4 goals so far, Lee Gregory and Morgan Fox.

Stoke City Player To Watch
Nick Powell in midfield is one we need to keep quiet and he has contributed with 5 goals and is their second highest scorer this season. Against Nottingham Forest, Sam Vokes in one of his rare starts this season was one of their better players.

AFCB Team News
Jack Stacey, Chris Mepham and Arnaut Danjuma look like they will again miss this game. No new injury reports after the Brentford game.

AFCB Player To Watch
Dominic Solanke looked sharp and lively against Brentford, especially in the first half and was unlucky not to finish the game with a brace of goals, rather than the one he scored which gives him nine league goals for the season so far.
 
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Another difficult game, unless Jason has sussed it out I expect them to overlap down our flanks as Brentford did time and time again, must win I feel, we surely have the ability, I hope Fletcher doesn't play as you don't want him to have too many chances.
 
Braithwell said:
Another difficult game, unless Jason has sussed it out I expect them to overlap down our flanks as Brentford did time and time again, must win I feel, we surely have the ability, I hope Fletcher doesn't play as you don't want him to have too many chances.
Click to expand...

Fletcher missed their last game after his knee injury flared up again.
 
Come on, when the chips are down I'd back us to get a result here.

We've had setbacks this season, but we're still there & abouts - fine margins at Brentford.

Hopefully we can make the class tell at Stoke - big game though to maintain our PL trajectory - the occasional bad result happens, but tough stoke is a must win to get us back on track.

Great season so far, come on you cherries ....
 
What a fixture this is...two famous clubs doing battle in a proper original old ground.. it doesn't get any better...
....Stoke City v Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic... 95 minutes of joy ...we've won there before and we can take em again...it won't be easy though...no stroll in the clovers..it ain't Bristol Rovers.
Its where Stan Matthews first danced...real football theatre in footballs finest decades..
..and Boscombe are back there to show what we've learned !
A Hell of a Fixture.. Savour it...on the Great Cherries Tour !
 
Brian Hutchings said:
What a fixture this is...two famous clubs doing battle in a proper original old ground.. it doesn't get any better...
....Stoke City v Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic... 95 minutes of joy ...we've won there before and we can take em again...it won't be easy though...no stroll in the clovers..it ain't Bristol Rovers.
Its where Stan Matthews first danced...real football theatre in footballs finest decades..
..and Boscombe are back there to show what we've learned !
A Hell of a Fixture.. Savour it...on the Great Cherries Tour !
Click to expand...
Bet365 is a new stadium
 
Without the benefit of the 3 points from the postponed Millwall game, this looks more important a game than it should. So, it's difficult to call what JT will do.

General consensus is we didn't play poorly last time out, yet a defeat gives him permission to make changes.

Is it worth the risk of dropping Brooks and Stanislas, replacing them with King and Surridge.

In midfield, Billing may have improved his highlight reel with good passages, but 2nd half against Brentford he made no impact. We can not afford hot and cold vs Stoke. Sacrificing him would enable a back 3 and wing backs to balance a narrow front three. If Mepham were fit, I think he would, but is he brave enough to bring Oforborh in to make the change work.

Rico over Kelly but then that's 4 changes after an okay performance.
 
Here is a bit of positive team news on the first day of 2021.

Three paras from the Echo.

MANAGER Jason Tindall confirmed Jack Stacey had returned to light training with Cherries and added: “We are delighted that he’s on his way back.”

“Jack has trained with the team – light training. He dipped in and out of that and is progressing really well,” Tindall told the Daily Echo.

“He is someone who will certainly be back involved within the next week or 10 days.”
 
'delighted' is an understatement.

I would imagine Jack gets a run out in the cup which is an ironic pity as we need to get a new understudy blooded from somewhere.
 
Meanwhile in the latest episode and first of 2021 in the Danjuma Injury series.


Arnaut Danjuma will again be an absentee at the bet365 Stadium this weekend, despite getting ever closer to a return from the injury the November win over Nottingham Forest.

Jason Tindall gave the latest news on his Dutch winger as well as the rest of the Cherries squad with the team starting 2021 in a televised match at Stoke City on Saturday evening.

The manager used his pre-match press conference at Vitality Stadium to offer information on Danjuma.

"I think this weekend will be too soon for him in that sense that when you've been out for a period of time with a hamstring injury you need that time on the training pitch to be able to make yourself robust, that's to ensure you don't pull up or do any more damage," he said.

"That's where Arnie is at the minute, in that phase of working up and being ready to get out there and push forwards in the team."

With three days between Championship matches against two promotion-pushing clubs, Tindall said, without naming names, that there are one or two other niggles to be looked at before he selects his team on Saturday.

"They've generally all come through from the game okay," he said. "There are a couple of concerns over one or two players that were assessed yesterday and were assessed again this morning.

"We'll look at them again tomorrow before making a decision as to if there okay to be selected for tomorrow night's game."

https://www.afcb.co.uk/news/first-team/team-news-danjuma-latest-pre-stoke/
 
Danjuma just isn’t built for professional football it would seem unfortunately, he makes Stanislas’ appearance record look impressive. Fear that it may be in our best interests to try and offload him in the summer when his value is still relatively high, as talented as he can be I can never see him being fit on a consistent basis.
 
Waz afcb said:
Danjuma just isn’t built for professional football it would seem unfortunately, he makes Stanislas’ appearance record look impressive. Fear that it may be in our best interests to try and offload him in the summer when his value is still relatively high, as talented as he can be I can never see him being fit on a consistent basis.
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So we should get rid of Dan, Stan and Brooks. is that what you are saying.
 
There's no way we would have survived 5 season in the PL without the quality Stanislas brought to the side for the 50% of each season he was available.

Sometimes you have to accept a player's limitations in return to what they bring to the squad. With a player like Stanislas is meant knowing he wouldn't be able to play every game. Danjuma could be just the same.
 
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