AFCB Vital Blogs

AFC Bournemouth’s Left Side (Zemura, Anthony, Billing)

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Written by NWCherries98

Just been having some thoughts on our style of play, form and general look when we play with our full-strength side. I’ve seen a lot of people on here and on Twitter saying that Jaidon Anthony is playing very badly, can’t perform without Jordan Zemura and is lucky to even be in the matchday squad. People are finally coming around but you still see people bashing Philip Billing too for being lazy. For me:

1. We absolutely have looked at our very best all season when we have our left-sided triangle of Zemura, Anthony and Billing playing together. The interplay we see from these three (usually finished off by Solanke) is routinely excellent and is a big part of why we were 13 points clear of second or whatever it was. Anthony covers Zemura and can find Billing with fantastic slide rule passes, Zemura charges forward and becomes almost a second advanced midfielder, and Billing is the glue that holds everything together.

2. Saying Anthony can’t perform without Zemura is nonsense and easily proven so. Zemura was injured for the majority of November, the month that Anthony scored 4 goals, won POTM and was nominated for the Championship POTM. Wingers are probably the most hot and cold of all players, and he’s not looking particularly great atm, but I think people are being very harsh on him. He’s still been one of our players of the season.

3. Billing is probably our most important player. I will admit that he still has the occasional game where he’s not quite on it; these are the games we usually don’t look good in. He covers so much distance, he links the play on our entire left side with Solanke, scores goals, gets assists, makes tackles. Without him, we look so much more disjointed and poor. More and more people are beginning to realise how important he is to us, but I still think he’s underrated. Credit to SP for keeping him purely as an advanced midfielder. In this position, I think he’s one of the best players in the Championship- in any position.

4. We’re not just looking awful because Zemura is missing. He is a huge miss, and like Anthony is one of our best performing players so far, but there’s more to it than that. We have won games without Zemura playing, and we’ve also won games without Billing (Anthony hasn’t really missed any games yet). Our problem is when 2 of these 3 players are missing at the same time; usually Billing and Zemura, leaving Anthony to get the brunt of people’s annoyance. If you actually take a look at our losses and more disappointing performances, a clear pattern emerges:

  • AFCB 1-2 Preston: Our first loss. Very disjointed and poor performance overall; we had Mepham at LB and Anthony on the bench. Billing still scored but he had no synergy between Lowe or Mepham.
  • AFCB 4-0 Swansea: The very next game, still no Zemura. However, we started the game with Davis instead, and Anthony playing alongside Billing once more. A nervy start gave way to an absolute romp. Could’ve been 6 or 7. Anthony scored a brace, Solanke was more involved and Billing was pulling the strings. Anthony was our highest rated player on Whoscored, and Davis was 2nd.
  • Derby 3-2 AFCB: We kept the same team here; while it doesn’t follow the pattern, I think this one was more down to the entire team (particularly Billing) being very cocky and not respecting the opposition. We could and should have pushed on and won the game comfortably.
  • Millwall 1-1 AFCB: Another poor performance. No Zemura or Billing. Anthony does not look the same player when you take away his triangle.
  • AFCB 0-2 Blackburn: Perhaps our worst performance of the season. Once again, no Zemura or Billing. Anthony ineffective and hooked on 70 minutes and is one of our worst players according to Whoscored. Dire.
  • Middlesbrough 1-0 AFCB: All three playing together for the first time. Torrid performance, Zemura still very rusty and Anthony is now in his worst form of the season, with nothing coming off and lacking the spark between him and Billing, who was also returning from injury and in disappointing form.

Some Stats
The above is basically all my opinion, but the more I was looking up our matches, the more I was interested in seeing a full breakdown of our wins. So that’s what I did. This table lists all our results for games started with all 3, all combinations of 2 of the 3 and all 3 starting on their own.

Stats.PNG

  • When we have all three of Anthony, Zemura and Billing starting a game together, we have a win percentage of 86.67%, 12 wins from a possible 15 with just 1 loss. Which is pretty nuts.
  • In 7 matches with a combination of two of any of the three starting together, we have a much lower win percentage of 57.14%, just 2 wins, 4 draws and a loss.
  • We don’t have a single win when just one of the three start a game. We have also seen 3 of our 4 losses this season under these circumstances, which is quite incredible.

What does this prove exactly? It proves that we need to keep all three of these players fit and playing together for as long as possible. When they play together, we’re title winners. When they don’t, we’re midtable fodder. It also proves that it isn’t just down to Zemura being missing, but actually the wider effect of the dynamic of the three being disrupted over a prolonged period of time.

We have missed Zemura the most because he’s been the one missing the most. The only variable we can’t really measure is Zemura and Billing playing without Anthony (he still came on in these games and played a small role). If we saw this and won all our games, Anthony is most likely the weak link in what has been a very, very impressive link.

I think this also shows the importance of having a dominant partnership of players in your side (we know all about this from 2014/15). These three don’t just link up with each other, but they link up as a unit with Dominic Solanke much more effectively than our right side does. Our right side has been a mishmash of Jack Stacey, Adam Smith, David Brooks, Ryan Christie, Lewis Cook and Emiliano Marcondes, and I don’t think Christie has the consistent link that Billing and Anthony have with Solanke, nor does he have a solid partnership with the No8 on his side. The prospect of a real goal threat, ball-carrier like Joe Rothwell or John Swift to sit where L. Cook currently is is very enticing. I think Christie has the legs, the creativity and defensive awareness to be part of a similar triangle on the right, but these traits aren’t matched by Marcondes, L. Cook or Stacey on a consistent basis. I think with a team like this (for example) we’d be near unstoppable:

————–Travers————–
Stacey—Cahill–Kelly—Zemura
—-Rothwell–Lerma–Billing—-
Christie—–Solanke—–Anthony

These are just some thoughts I was having on all this, be interested to hear other people’s opinions.

Your say…

Waz afcb wrote…

I think that Billing is the key. Parker plays a very unique system and places very specific demands on his number eights, Billing is the only player we really have who can fulfil this role and when he’s not there the whole team suffers because of it. I’ve not been his biggest fan in the past but he’s absolutely pivotal to the way we play under Parker, we can cope with the other two being missing to a certain extent but not Billing. Unfortunately, we have a very unique way of playing and a lack of players who can fit into this advanced number eight role that Parker persists with, it’s why recruiting another of this mould is absolutely vital in the remainder of the window. When Billing is out our whole game falls to pieces. – Join the conversation, click here.

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