{"id":11189,"date":"2025-05-02T17:56:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T16:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=11189"},"modified":"2025-05-04T13:17:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T12:17:45","slug":"cherries-come-calling-with-chaos-to-be-controlled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=11189","title":{"rendered":"Cherries Come Calling with Chaos to be Controlled"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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And so to the Stadium of Stone, where the Arsenal entertain AFC Bournemouth in Saturday’s early evening kick-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A hundred years ago to the day, (if you are reading this on May 2), Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic, as it then was, long before renaming itself in a pathetic attempt to precede Arsenal among English clubs, if only alphabetically, also visited London. Its opponents were Brentford, and the match was a league game in the old Third Division South. Bournemouth won a game described as keen but scrappy, 2-1, in dull weather before 5,000 spectators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the final game of the season and a dead rubber. Brentford were already sure to finish one from bottom in the division, meaning they would have to seek re-election. Bournemouth had already avoided that necessity, albeit they would finish only one place above Brentford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a more extensive history of our visitors, I refer you to my preview<\/a> of this fixture last year and Trev’s excellent preview<\/a> of the ill-starred game at the Vitality Stadium earlier this season. Yet, it highlights how far Bournemouth \u2014 and Brentford, for that matter \u2014 have come that they will arrive at the Emirates on Saturday, sitting tenth in the Premier League and still with a decent chance of achieving European football next season. They are one point off eighth. The team that finishes in that position should secure a Conference League spot for next season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their ascendancy was by no means a given. Several 1924-25 Third Division South clubs now play non-league football. One, Merthyr Town, has fallen to tier 7 of the pyramid, although it has just won the Southern League Premier Division South and thus promotion to tier 6 for next season. Another, Aberdare Athletic, folded long ago. The Third Division South had several Welsh teams. When the Football League expanded to three divisions after World War 1, the Third Division South was carved out of the Southern League, which had a section comprising clubs from South Wales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bournemouth are relatively recent arrivals at the top table, however. We first entertained them in a league game as recently as three days after Christmas Day, 2015. Our table-topping team beat them 2-0 thanks to goals by Prequel Gabbi (Gabriel Paulista) and Mesut \u00d6zil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had only played the Cherries once before that, in October 1987 at Highbury in the league cup, then sponsored by Littlewoods, which ran football pools (google it, younger ‘holics) and was once the biggest private company in Europe. We won 3-0. Kevin Richardson, Alan Smith and Michael Thomas were our goal scorers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will be only our 18th game against Bournemouth. We have won 13, drawn two and lost two. The two defeats were at their gaff, in January 2018 and last October<\/a>, when VAR upped a Saliba yellow to a red, leaving us over an hour to play with 10 men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iraola’s impact<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arteta’s teenage teammate in San Sebasti\u00e1n and later in Spain’s U-21 side, Andoni Iraola, has been the architect of the Cherries’ recent success. His name is now frequently linked to expected managerial vacancies at bigger clubs and Tottenham. He is currently third favourite with the gentlemen of the turf to succeed both Carlo Ancelotti in Madrid and Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. He is the fourth favourite to replace Ange, mate, at the wrong end of the Severn Sisters Road. If the football Gods smile kindly on him, he will drop to fifth favourite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has said that he was inspired to go into coaching by our very own Paddy Vieira, his gaffer when he was playing out the dog days of his career with New York City FC. However, one of his managers at Athletic Bilbao, where he had spent 15 years of his career, Marcelo Bielsa, most influenced his managerial style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is more than a touch of the tornado-like, rapid and relentless intensity that is the hallmark of a Bielsa side to Iraola’s Bournemouth. He has said, ‘I prefer too much chaos to too much control’. His teams play high-risk, high-reward football with athleticism and commitment. Attacks are direct and defence is aggressive. In his pre-match press conference, Arteta said he saw similarities with PSG.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He sets up in a 4-2-3-1 that will morph into a 4-3-3 in the build-up and a high-pressing 4-4-2 that drops back into a mid-block without the ball. Bournemouth mixes up going long and short in the build-up and in inverting the full-backs or having them go wide but high more than most teams. The wingers and the eights focus on attacking the half spaces but still fire in plenty of crosses to the far-post, relying on a relentlessly running team to create numerical overloads in the box and raw physicality to win second balls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chelsea loanee Kepa Arrizabalaga will be in goal. The centre-backs in the back four will likely be the 20-year-old and much-touted Dutch-born Spanish international Dean Huijsen and Ilya Zabarnyi, who has 47 caps for Ukraine despite being only two years Huijsen’s senior. The 21-year-old Hungarian international Milos Kerkez, who is another expected to move this summer for big money, will be at left-back with veteran Leytonstone-born Adam Smith, who played up the England age group teams when he was on the neighbour’s books, defending the right flank. Smith took over the captaincy from Neto after the Brazilian joined us on loan for this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyler Adams, the US international from Wappingers Falls, New York, a delightful town in the Hudson Valley, will share the DM duties with either another of Iraola’s young proteges, the 21-year-old Channel Islander Alex Scott, who has been making his way back to fitness after a meniscus tear, or former Leeds man, Lewis Cook, another who played up through the England age group teams, but his sole full cap was seven years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attacking power, pace and potency come from the Chelsea-born Ghanaian Antoine Semenyo on the right wing, <\/strong>Dango Ouattara, the 23-year-old  Burkina-Faso international, on the opposite flank, and Justin Kluivert, son of Patrick in the middle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This season, Kluivert is Bournemouth’s leading goal scorer (12) and joint top assist provider with Kerkez (6). Semenyo has nine goals and five assists. Ouattara has seven goals and four assists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of them, Brazilian centre-forward Evanilson, bought from Porto last summer for \u00a331 million to replace the departing Dominic Solanke, has nine goals and five assists. He will be available after having the red card VAR raised from the ref’s yellow against the Red Mancs last Sunday overturned on appeal. Daniel Jebbison, who arrived from Watford in January and was capped by Canada in March, won’t now be handed his first start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iraola has good options elsewhere for when he needs to refresh hard-worked legs, including Wales international right winger David Brooks, midfielder Marcus Tavernier, who is another working his way back to match fitness after a foot injury, and the California-born Mexico international defender Juli\u00e1n Araujo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Midfielder Luis Sinisterra is 50\/50 for recovering in time from a thigh injury. Ryan Christie, who is facing surgery for a long-running groin issue, will miss the game, as will the promising Turkish striker Enes Unal, who is recovering from surgery for ligament damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We still need eight points to be mathematically certain of second and six to guarantee Champions League football next season (although if we beat Bournemouth and Liverpool win at the Bus Stop on Sunday, fifth is the lowest we can finish). This game is sandwiched between the two legs against PSG, but I fancy Arteta will start a strong side with only slight rotation and hope to get the big guns off as early as possible in the second half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our long-term injury list is unchanged. Neto cannot play against his parent club. Rice is in line to play his 100th game for the club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timber, Saliba, Kiwior, Zinchenko<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partey, \u00d8degaard, Rice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka, Merino, Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bournemouth will be scrapping for European football, with their chances improved if Fulham lose the early game at Villa. They will also be keen to do the double over us. Yet, this is a game we should win, perhaps narrowly, and if only because Arteta can likely control his friend’s chaos better than Iraola can wreak chaos on Arteta’s control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally, it is a game in which invaluable points could slip away. That could prove costly in our pursuit of second place with a trip to league champions Liverpool and a visit from third-placed Newcastle to follow. After that, all that will be left in the league is a trip to Southampton, where we’ve put sole to banana skin in the past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I will plump for an old-fashioned 1-0 to the Arsenal even if minds are on next Wednesday’s rescue mission in Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy the game, ‘holics, near and far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so to the Stadium of Stone, where the Arsenal entertain AFC Bournemouth in Saturday’s early evening kick-off. A hundred years ago to the day, (if you are reading this on May 2), Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic, as it then was, long before renaming itself in a pathetic attempt to precede Arsenal among English clubs, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11189"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11201,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11189\/revisions\/11201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}