BOURNEMOUTH PREVIEW

Sunderland host Bournemouth in the Premier League, with us looking to bounce back from a 1-0 defeat away to Fulham last week and the visitors looking to win on the road for the first time since August. Here’s all the key information on our opponents:

FORM

The Cherries’ current form could certainly be better, they’ve won one, drawn two and lost two of the last five. Their only win came at home to Nottingham Forest (2-0), the two draws came away to Crystal Palace (3-3) and at home to West Ham United (2-2) and the two defeats occurred on trips to Manchester City (3-1) and Aston Villa (4-0). Currently, they sit 8th (one position below us) but their current position is largely down to their home form. Four of their five wins have come at the Vitality Stadium, so we can definitely get something with them being the travelling party as they’ve only taken five points from a possible 18 away so far. Bournemouth’s most recent outing was the 2-2 draw with West Ham, in which they had to come from two goals down. A Marcus Tavernier penalty and an Enes Unal goal with less than ten minutes to spare rescued them the point.

THE MANAGER

43-year-old Andoni Iraola is the current boss, he’s been in charge since July 2023 and reached the 100 games managed for Bournemouth mark in their last fixture. Of those 100 games, he’s won 39, drawn 25 and lost 36. Previously, he was the manager of AEK Larnaca (where he won a Cypriot Super Cup), Mirandes and Rayo Vallecano. Before he went into coaching, Iraola had a playing career as a right back, he spent most of his playing days with Athletic Bilbao and made over 500 appearances for the club. He was also capped seven times by the Spain national team.

KEY PLAYERS

Serbia international Djordje Petrovic is their number one goalkeeper, he’s kept four clean sheets in 13 appearances so far this season. Their current top goalscorer is former Sunderland player and right winger Antoine Semenyo, he’s netted six in 12 so far, however he is a doubt for this one due to an ankle injury. Centre forward Eli Junior Kroupi is next on the most prolific list, finding the back of the net four times in 10 matches. Semenyo is also their joint-top playmaker, with three assists, but centre back and Argentina international Marcos Senesi matches him in this regard. Petrovic was a new addition in the summer transfer window, with other signings including centre back Bafode Diakite, attacking midfielder Amine Adli and left back Adrien Truffert.

PREVIOUS MEETINGS

We’ve met Bournemouth 10 times in total, we’ve won five, drawn three and lost two of those. The most recent game between the two sides is one to forget for our supporters as we lost 1-0 at the Stadium of Light back in April 2017, condemning us to relegation to the Championship. The last time we beat them was in November 2016, we won 2-1 at their ground via goals from Victor Anichebe and Jermain Defoe. You have to go all the way back to October 1989 to see the last time we beat them on our own patch, we won 3-2 due to an Eric Gates brace and a goal from Marco Gabbiadini in the Second Division.

PREDICTION

It’s a bit of a difficult one to predict because they are obviously a good side but they haven’t been seeing much success away from home as of yet. The only team they’ve managed to beat while travelling is Tottenham Hotspur, who themselves have the second worst home record in the league. They also required a 93rd minute equaliser to get a point from Leeds United away. However, the other point they picked up came versus Crystal Palace, who aren’t pushovers by any means, and they lost to Manchester City (which is completely understandable), Aston Villa (who, whilst they did capitulate and lose 4-0 to, are a team in a European competition and currently sitting in a Champions League spot) and Liverpool (at the start of the season when Arne Slot’s men were doing well). So, it’s a much more mixed picture than their away form suggests I think. Still, we should be aiming for all three points. An entirely sensible goal this season is to win at least one game a month for the remainder of it (that will keep us up) but we’ve so far thrown away our best two chances in November, at home to Everton and away to Fulham. AFCON is fast approaching and we have to play Liverpool and Man City straight after this. It’s not quite a must win, it’s definitely a must not lose though. We’ve generally been good at bouncing back this season, never losing two in a row, so I’m going to say we win 3-2. They’ve got a good attack but a bad defence (they are the only team to have a negative goal difference in the top 11 of the division).