Arsenal up against ‘aggressive and industrious’ Bournemouth.

Morning all.

Bournemouth travel to Arsenal today for the lunchtime fixture which is live on TNT Sport. Talking to BBC Radio Solent yesterday, manager Andoni Iraola spoke about injuries and facing Arsenal.

• Illia Zabarnyi is available after missing the Brighton win due to illness and Romain Faivre could also return, as could Philip Billing.
• However, Marcus Tavernier, Tyler Adams, Luis Sinisterra and Chris Mepham all remain out.
• On league leaders Arsenal: “I don’t know if this is the most difficult challenge that we have faced this season but it is a difficult game because they are playing so well. I don’t think we have gained any points at the Emirates, so we are expecting a really demanding game but if we give our best, we won’t make it easy for Arsenal.

Mikel Arteta and Andoni Iraola have known each other since they were young but today, any friendship they might have, will be put to one side. Bournemouth have nothing but pride and a few thousand travelling fans to play for. Arsenal however, just need to win. Get the three points and put pressure on Man City who play Wolves at The Etihad later in the day. Liverpool host Totts on Sunday afternoon.

Against Brighton, Bournemouth’s last fixture which they won 3-0, Iraola’s team were happy to allow Brighton the majority of possession, 30% – 70%, which is quite staggering for a home team yet it worked for them. Both sides had a similar amount of shots but the difference being, Brighton managed just one on target. Senesi, Unal and Kluivert scored Bournemouth’s goals. Dominic Solanke is their highest goal scorer though with just 3 less than Haaland on 21.

What can we expect from Bournemouth, well Arsenal’s Adrian Clarke has the answer:

Iraola started with a twin strikeforce against Brighton, but I expect them to revert to their usual 4-2-3-1. They are a counter-attacking outfit happy to go from back to front with one pass, and Everton are the only top-flight team to average more long passes per 90 minutes. When we are on the front foot, the visitors could be at their most dangerous. On the ball they fly forward at pace and lead the Premier League rankings for shots from fast breaks, registering nine more efforts from those situations than any other side. They have also scored an impressive seven goals from high turnovers in 2023/24, and in general they create plenty of chances, with their tally of 385 eclipsing the likes of Chelsea, Newcastle United, Aston Villa and Manchester United.

Off the ball they are industrious and aggressive. No-one has made more fouls than Iraola’s men, who love to close down opponents in packs, and Liverpool are the only outfit to regain possession more often than the Cherries inside the middle third, where the likes of Ryan Christie [above] and Lewis Cook are excellent at knocking opponents out of their stride. However Bournemouth do leak goals, shipping three or more in 10 of their 35 matches. Going away to the strongest teams in the division has sometimes been problematic. They scored in each of their trips to the current top five, but the aggregate scoreline from those matches is 15-4.

Stating the bleedin obvious, we need an early goal because if we’re not careful, this game could be a copycat of Aston Villa. Villa rode the storm, we couldn’t finish our chances and after being patient, hit us twice towards the end of the game. That Villa result threw a spanner into our Premier League title hopes. Anything other than a win today will, in my opinion, end any hope, albeit slim, we’re hanging on to.

Back in September, we thrashed Bournemouth 4-0 at their place but they were going through a bad patch back then. Iraola was rumoured to be heading for the sack having not won one of the opening seven fixtures. Bournemouth were already being labelled as one of the favourites to be relegated. Unlike a lot of clubs, the Bournemouth board stood by their man and in November, results began to improve. Now they sit in tenth place with just six points between them and sixth place Manchester Utd.

Mikel Arteta has a fully fit squad to select from for the first time since the opening day of the season. During his press conference, Arteta said that Jurrien Timber’s next step in his return to full fitness is to play for the first team. Assuming he’s in the squad today, perhaps we’ll see him later in the game if circumstances permit.

As long as there are no tired legs in the camp, I suspect we’ll see the same starting eleven we saw last Sunday.

Catch up in the comments.