{"id":13213,"date":"2026-04-11T03:12:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T02:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=13213"},"modified":"2026-04-11T19:24:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T18:24:04","slug":"south-coast-challenge-one-week-on-bring-on-the-cherries-for-breakfast-lunch-and-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=13213","title":{"rendered":"South Coast Challenge, One Week On:  Bring on the Cherries for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2212626936\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:60.10101% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/2212626936?et=kLTAgIUcSideN5T5Otvgiw&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=iD3L-N6toayqHxjdt4Ephvd9w54kL__wzPJQZhfoccI=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"357\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>At the Emirates on Saturday lunchtime, Arsenal have a golden opportunity to improve their recent record against South Coast opposition when Bournemouth pay a visit in the Gunners\u2019 first Premier League game after a hiatus of nearly a month (which featured a two-week international break  bracketed by disappointing Carabao and FA Cup defeats to Manchester City and Southampton, respectively).&nbsp; After the Gunners\u2019 satisfying Champions League midweek jaunt to the Portuguese capital brought them their first victory during that month, they will be in a brighter mood which should be a boost as the pointed end of the season gets still pointier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mikel Arteta said yesterday, quite rightly of course, that Arsenal and their fans have a big day in front of them on Saturday, and conjured some food-related imagery in his pre-match remarks to the media: \u201cThe closer we get, the relevance and importance of the match increases obviously, and tomorrow is a big day for us. The players know it, our supporters know it. It&#8217;s an early kick-off, so get up early, have an early breakfast, bring your lunch, bring your dinner, and let&#8217;s go all together for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Bournemouth showed in their 3-2 loss to the Gunners on the South Coast in January, in which our opponents scored the first and last goals of the game, if you are brave enough to put Arsenal under pressure, they can be vulnerable.&nbsp;&nbsp;Cherries\u2019 head coach Andoni Iraola was at St. Mary\u2019s last weekend to scout their hosts, and may have spotted a vulnerability or two that his team will try to exploit.&nbsp; Manchester City attacked Arsenal at Wembley three weeks ago and provoked defensive errors to emerge victorious by 2-0.&nbsp;&nbsp;Last Saturday, it was Southampton\u2019s turn and, on Tuesday Sporting may have missed an opportunity to attack Arsenal as often as they should have in the Champions League quarter-final first leg in Lisbon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Southampton were seen by some as a relatively easy route to the semi-finals for the Gunners, but proved to be a very difficult opponent and we should expect to see more of the same from Bournemouth.&nbsp; Last May in this fixture the Cherries inflicted one of the more disappointing defeats of the Gunners\u2019 season when they scored the last two goals of the game and came away with a 2-1 win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arsenal will have to be defensively strong and savvy, especially on Bournemouth\u2019s set pieces considering that our opponents have scored on us that way two years running.&nbsp;&nbsp;Arteta commented: \u201cWe need to learn that lesson\u2026 We conceded a set-piece goal the year before as well. So it&#8217;s an area where they are really strong, and we certainly have to improve to create the margin and the game context that we want.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bournemouth no longer have two of the Premier League\u2019s more formidable goal scoring threats after Solanke left for Tottenham (where he promptly stopped scoring), and Semenyo left in January for Manchester City (where he promptly didn\u2019t).&nbsp; But the 13<sup>th<\/sup>-placed Cherries still have Evanilson who scored the winning goal in this fixture last season, and they have scored 46 goals with a respectable goal difference of -2.&nbsp; In their most recent seven Premier League matches, Bournemouth have drawn six of them and defeated Everton in the other one.&nbsp; If the Cherries\u2019 form holds it would be far from a good thing for Arsenal who need by all means to win this game, NOT (Please, God!) draw it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arsenal Team News<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mikel Arteta announced in his Friday presser that Eberechi Eze, who last played in the 2-0 win against Bayer Leverkusen nearly a month ago, will be available for this match.&nbsp;&nbsp;If he plays it will be his first game since returning from injury so he is most likely to begin on the bench.&nbsp;&nbsp;The boss said: \u201c(Eze\u2019s) recovery, the will that he&#8217;s shown from day one to get back as quick as possible, how he&#8217;s pushed the medical staff and himself to be there tomorrow, it&#8217;s just great to watch.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arteta also hinted that there could be more than one returnee from our contingent of walking wounded, a list that has recently included Saka, Eze, Hincapi\u00e9, and Timber,&nbsp;and reading between the lines here, specifically seemed to suggest that Hincapi\u00e9 could be available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Given those hints from the honorable jefe, and the team that brought home the Champions League goods in midweek, the Gunners may field a team like this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Raya<br>White  Saliba  Gabriel  Calafiori<br>\u00d8degaard  Zubimendi  Rice<br>Madueke  Gy\u00f6keres  Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We should be pleasantly surprised if Timber, Hincapi\u00e9 or Eze are deemed fit enough to start the match but I have a feeling we might see the faces of all three at some point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The &#8216;Holics Pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Seeing as one of my hunches suddently occurred as I was finishing this preview, you should seriously consider going out and putting your hard-earned on 2-0 to the Arsenal with Zubimendi and Gy\u00f6keres providing the winning goals.&nbsp; Those recent bouts of defensive frailty will be completely healed, if all goes according to plan.&nbsp; It sounds perfectly straightforward but unfortunately may not prove to be quite so simple.&nbsp; You can thank me later (or not) for letting you know everything will turn out the way we wanted in the end.&nbsp; Never mind the result, just enjoy the watch, \u2018holics, but if we do win I promiose we will be that much closer to our goal so there\u2019s plenty on this game.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Come on Arsenal!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images At the Emirates on Saturday lunchtime, Arsenal have a golden opportunity to improve their recent record against South Coast opposition when Bournemouth pay a visit in the Gunners\u2019 first Premier League game after a hiatus of nearly a month (which featured a two-week international break bracketed by disappointing Carabao and FA [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"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\/13213"}],"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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13221,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13213\/revisions\/13221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}