Wycombe Wanderers v AFC Bournemouth - 2 To Go!

billythekid

billythekid

UTC Legend
Nothing At Stake

After seven consecutive wins on the trot, a disappointment on Saturday losing at home 0-1 to 10 man team, Brentford. So AFCB will be hoping to get back in their stride against bottom team Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday at 3 pm.

With only two games to go this game has nothing at stake for either side now, Wycombe are all but relegated after one season in the Championship and have an inferior goal difference of 13 against 21st place Derby County who are also six points in front. The Cherries are playing to finish as high as they can in the play-offs and get back into their winning stride.

The Chairboys have been in the bottom three all season and have in their six games in April, beaten Blackburn Rovers at home 1-0 and then fellow relegation place side Rotherham United 0-3 away. In their third game they were home to Luton Town and lost 1-3. They then played away at Swansea and came away with a point in a 2-2 draw. Back at home for their fifth game of the month against Bristol City, Wycombe took all three points in a 2-1 win. Their most recent game was back in Wales again and they lost 2-1 at Cardiff City. Result and points wise this was probably Wycombe Wanderers best month of the season so far.

In our earlier game back in December at Dean Court the Cherries won 1-0, the goal came four minutes after Wycombe went down to 10 men after Alex Pattinson was given a straight red for a foul on Lewis Cook in the 64th minute, our scorer was Junior Stanislas. In the game dominated by AFCB, who had 22 shots with 7 on target against Wycombe’s 10 shots with 3 on target.

AFCB last visited Wycombe Wanderers in the November of the 2011-12 season in League 1. Marc Pugh scored the only goal of the game from a Wes Fogden cross, but the home side could have equalised, but Stuart Beavon missed a penalty after Scott Malone brought down one of their players. The Cherries completed the double over Wycombe Wanderers, who were relegated at the end of the season. AFCB had Lee Bradbury as manager and they finished in 11th place.

In all our away league games against Wycombe Wanderers, AFCB have W 4, D 4, L 3.

All competitions, AFCB have W 14, D 6, L 6.

Wycombe Team News
Ryan Tafazolli , Dominic Gape and Nnamdi Ofoborh missed the Cardiff City game through injuries.

Wycombe Player To Watch
Joe Jacobson with 4 goals and has most assists with 6. Uche Ikpeazu is the leading scorer with 5 goals and has 2 assists.

AFCB Team News
Shane Long and Lloyd Kelly missed the Brentford defeat. No news on any new injuries. With a play-off place confirmed, JW may rest some key players so they are fit and refreshed for the big games coming up.

AFCB Player To Watch
This again depends on who starts as mentioned above. But the usual suspects if they play, during April all three have been among the goal scorers, Arnaut Danjuma with 5 goals, Philip Billing and Dominic Solanke both with 4 goals.
 
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billythekid said:
AFCB Team News
Shane Long and Lloyd Kelly missed the Brentford defeat. No news on any new injuries. With a play-off place confirmed, JW may rest some key players so they are fit and refreshed for the big games coming up.
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I hope not, best way to bounce back after the poor Brentford performance is to get back to as close a first choice XI and continue the form from the past few games. Then we can chalk Brentford off as a simple blip.
 
DJ said:
I hope not, best way to bounce back after the poor Brentford performance is to get back to as close a first choice XI and continue the form from the past few games. Then we can chalk Brentford off as a simple blip.
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I agree, consistency is key.

But just from what I have heard/read from JW, he obviously wants those players available for the play-offs, but at the same time he doesn’t want to lose players to injuries in the next two games.

Remember we lost Solanke, Stanislas and Kelly when they were playing well during games.

As he says, he has some difficult decisions to make.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1386641224874950659

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/s...sions-make-cherries-play-off-place-confirmed/
 
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billythekid said:
I agree, consistency is key.

But just from what I have heard/read from JW, he obviously wants those players available for the play-offs, but at the same time he doesn’t want to lose players to injuries in the next two games.

Remember we lost Solanke, Stanislas and Kelly when they were playing well during games.

As he says, he has some difficult decisions to make.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1386641224874950659

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/s...sions-make-cherries-play-off-place-confirmed/
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Yes. Tricky one. I'd be extremely surprised if we didn't see a very different team line up for Saturday's game. For the final game he'll maybe give "key players" a run out in the second half just to get them up to speed if the game isn't too feisty.

I'd rather we played our best team and just managed some players minutes during the games. Injuries can happen any time, even in the last ten minutes of the final game when JW has perhaps brought Arnie on to sharpen him up for the playoffs.

As a manager I think I'd be brave and play my best team. If you are unlucky and get a run of injuries, it's hardly your fault. These things can happen. They can also not happen. I think you have to trust your players. If they feel strong, are not carrying any injury and want to play, you should play them. They will probably be clever enough to pull out of any dangerous looking 50/50s, knowing what's at stake.
 
It's a fine line. A little rotation may help to get say Stanislas, Brooks, Wilshere, Surridge up to speed, and keeps a lid on the minutes we're asking of players like Solanke, Billing, Danjuma, Pearson or Lerma. But we definitely want to avoid the over-rotation from early in the season, and we want to get back on course with a good performance and result.
 
Looking at the club calendar I don't think he needs to worry about players getting injured. First 4 months were, Brooks, Danjuma, L.Cook and Kelly. All of them got injured in "their" month, next month is Watford's player of the season, Dan Gosling : )

Re Kenya Cherry and Billy the Kidd, all I can say is "fight, fight, fight" : )
 
Personally think he will aim to keep a fairly settled side but if players are carrying knocks or have muscle strains then wise to rest. Utilise 5 subs in second half too.

Could do with Wilshere, brooks and Stan getting decent game time to build up matchday fitness

Also comes down to whether JW will want to face Brentford over two games if we finish 6th or maybe Barnsley if we finish 4/5th? All sides probably want Swansea at the moment.
 
If we mess around with it too much we could end up going into the play-offs on the back of 3 straight defeats...

Wycombe are no mugs, despite their league position, however, with our first XI at full flow we should come away form Adams Pk with 3 points, same for home V Stoke, with our strongest side...

My fear is the mental state of this side is proven to be very fragile... With recent form, it should be sky high but we know this lot... We need to be going into the playoffs firing on all cylinders and for me, the only way you do that is win, win, win... No messing around...

If necessary the instructions should be go at them all out for 25 mins and try and get a couple of goals up... then bring players off in the 2nd half... But a couple more performances like Brentford will do nothing for belief and confidence...

Build on the 7 straight wins and keep going...!!! Ideally we need to finish 3rd or 4th!
 
northstandmark said:
It's a fine line. A little rotation may help to get say Stanislas, Brooks, Wilshere, Surridge up to speed, and keeps a lid on the minutes we're asking of players like Solanke, Billing, Danjuma, Pearson or Lerma. But we definitely want to avoid the over-rotation from early in the season, and we want to get back on course with a good performance and result.
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I think that Stanislas always needs a few games after time out with an injury and I'd play Brooks in both games while his form is picking up. The rest can be rotated against Wycombe but I reckon the team that starts against Stoke should be our strongest before the play offs.
 
Great to see the social media boycott this weekend is gaining some traction across multiple sporting organisations and sports stars.
 
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