{"id":12552,"date":"2026-01-02T19:39:52","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T19:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12552"},"modified":"2026-01-04T10:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T10:00:20","slug":"destiny-starts-in-dorset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12552","title":{"rendered":"Destiny Starts In Dorset"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

And so to the Vitality Stadium for our first match in what we all hope will be an epochal 2026. There we shall face a spluttering AFC Bournemouth in Saturday\u2019s early evening game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cherries have not won a match since their victory over Forest in late October. Their draw at the Bus Stop on Tuesday, although one of their better performances recently, extended their winless streak to ten games, evenly divided between draws and defeats. This has dropped them to fifteenth in the league. However, they are still closer in points to European qualification than to relegation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is paradoxical performance for a club whose manager, 43-year-old Andoni Iraola, is widely regarded as one of the most up-and-coming of the up-and-coming managers in the Premier League. His name is usually in the frame when there is a managerial vacancy at a major club or at The Bus Stop or in the Middlesex Marshlands. The gentlemen of the turf have him as joint third favourite to replace Xabi Alonso at Real Madrid, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His reputation has been established on cementing Bournemouth\u2019s place in the top flight since he arrived from Rayo Vallecano in July 2023. A 12th-placed finish in his first season was followed by ninth last term. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This season was inevitably going to be one of rebuilding. In the summer, the club sold four of its best barely-20-somethings, Ilya Zabarnyi, Dean Huijsen, Milos Kerkez and Dango Ouattara, to PSG, Real Madrid, Liverpool and Brentford (!), respectively, for \u20ac215.2 million. Another six squad members were shipped out, including Neto. Having been returned to the South Coast with barely any additional wear and tear after spending a season warming our bench, he was let go on a free, and is now warming the bench for Botafogo in Brazil\u2019s Serie A.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iraola also faces the loss of his leading goalscorer, Antoine Semenyo. The Ghana international\u2019s \u20ac74.5 million 10-day release clause kicked in with the arrival of the New Year. Bournemouth\u2019s cunning plan is to prevent the Oil-landers triggering it until after the matches against us and then the neighbours on the 7th. At the time of writing, their plan is on track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A short history<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There isn’t much history between the clubs to regale you with, dear reader. Saturday\u2019s match will be just the 19th competitive fixture between the two sides. Bournemouth has won three of the previous 18, although those wins include two from last season, when, somewhat surprisingly, they were the only team to complete the league double over us. Six points that should not have been given up proved costly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cherries first reached the top flight under Eddie Howe in 2015, and the only first-team game before that was a League Cup tie in 1987, when \u2018arry Rednapp was Bournemouth\u2019s lubbly-jubbly manager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gimlet-eyed among you might have noticed the \u2018first-team\u2019 qualifier slipped into the previous paragraph. Our reserves played a friendly against Boscombe in 1931, and then competitive reserve-team football during the 1930s after the Dorset club, then playing in the old Third Division South, also joined the London Combination, a league for Football League club\u2019s reserve teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you care to read Bournemouth\u2019s origin story as Boscombe FC in the dying embers of the Victorian era and the club\u2019s shameless attempt to elevate itself above us, at least alphabetically, by prefixing its name with AFC, you can find it here (https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9549<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Serbia\u2019s second-choice keeper, Djordje Petrovic, is Bournemouth\u2019s first-choice glove-buttler, even though his form has been far from immaculate since arriving from the Bus Stop for \u20ac28 million in the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of him, Iraola has been juggling to find a new back four, not helped by losing Veljko Milosavljevic, the promising teenage centre-back bought in the summer for \u20ac15 million from Red Star to injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Chelsea, Iraola played \u00c1lex Jim\u00e9nez, a Spain U-21 international who is on loan from AC Milan, at right back with 23-year-old Bristol-born James Hill, who has been in and out of the squad, and Marcos Sensei, who joined the club shortly after winning the first of his two Argentina caps in 2022, in the middle, and Adrien Truffert, who has five France caps, all for the TH14-managed France team at the 2024 Olympics, on the left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the previous game, at Brentford, he played veteran club captain Adam Smith at right back with Jim\u00e9nez playing as an attacking midfielder, and Bafod\u00e9 Diakit\u00e9, a 24-year-old who has been on the fringe of France\u2019s age-group teams, and a summer buy from Lille for \u20ac35 million, at right centre back, with Hill on the bench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The improved performance against Chelsea may lead Iraola to keep his back four unchanged. Yet, regardless of its configuration, Bournemouth\u2019s defence has conceded 35 goals in 19 games. Only the three clubs in the relegation zone have been more porous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyler Adams would have been a starting DM, but is out with a torn MCL. Central midfielders, Lewis Cook and Ryan Christie, are also injury doubts, Christie more than Cook, but leaving Marcus Tavernier and Alex Scot likely to man the engine room. That would further denude central midfield, with just Patrick Kluivert available. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bournemouth is reportedly looking to sign Ethan Nwaneri to bolster its midfield. Arteta\u2019s face instantly switched to his portcullis-down, drawbridge-up hard stare when asked about Nwaneri in his pre-match press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iraola also has Scotland international winger Ben Gannon-Doak, bought in the summer from Liverpool for \u20ac23.2 million, off-games. Welsh international David Brooks, who scored against Chelsea, is one option for the right wing. On the left, in the unlikely event there is a Semenyo-shaped hole, Iraola will likely fill it with the French-born former Moroccan international Amine Adli, a summer signing from Leverkusen for \u20ac21.0 million. Teenage France U21 forward Eli Kroupi could also be called upon, should Iraola prefer to use the left-footed Adli as an inverted winger on the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up front, the Brazilian Evanilson will likely start. Turkiye international Enes Unal, bought in 2024 as a long-term replacement for Dominic Solanke, who so tragically went missing without trace in the Middlesex Marshes last season, has not yet been able to re-establish himself in the side after missing the start of the season with a cruciate ligament tear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Not surprisingly, sticking four goals past Villa on Tuesday brought a renewed spring to the step of our side, or at least of those fit enough to take to a football pitch. Arteta says their number will not include Riccardo Calafiori this weekend. It may or may not include Declan Rice, whose knee remains swollen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Rice is not 110% fit, I would start Merino. We\u2019ll need a fully firing Rice against the Scousers next Thursday. And after all, as one numerically challenged TV pundit said recently, \u2018Zubimendi and Merino\u2026that\u2019s three-quarters of Spain\u2019s midfield\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only selection questions not related to injuries are whether Viktor Gy\u00f6keres or Jes\u00f9s should start as the nine and can Kai Havertz get some minutes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapi\u00e9<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard, Merino, Zubimendi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka, Gy\u00f6keres, Trossard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manchester City\u2019s draw with Sunderland means that, for the first time in a couple of games, we are sure to start the match still at the top. Not that this makes it any less of a must-win game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all their recent discombobulation, Bournemouth have lost just once at home this season. However, we should have enough for Arteta to put one over his boyhood teammate. Our hosts lack height and physicality, especially when defending set pieces, so it\u2019s an ideal time for Big Gabbi to be back. A 2-0 away victory would be a promising start to a new year carrying high expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy the game, \u2018holics, near and far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so to the Vitality Stadium for our first match in what we all hope will be an epochal 2026. There we shall face a spluttering AFC Bournemouth in Saturday\u2019s early evening game. The Cherries have not won a match since their victory over Forest in late October. Their draw at the Bus Stop on […]<\/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\/12552"}],"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=12552"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12577,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12552\/revisions\/12577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}