AFC Bournemouth have kicked off their pre-season campaign with an easy victory over Scottish Premiership side Hibernian.
Pre-season friendlies shouldn’t be used as a barometer to judge anything. Pre-season friendlies are fitness tests for players, managing workloads and preparation for the competitive fixtures to come, nothing more, nothing less. They are a glorified training session, an extension to a training, played against opposition sides who are also preparing their sides for their own upcoming campaigns and priorities.
On this occasion, it was in the heat of Marbella, played over three, thirty-minute periods.
It was the first time any kind of spotlight was put on new AFC Bournemouth head coach Andoni Iraola as he picked his first side.
Mark Travers started the game in goal, with Adam Smith selected as captain, playing in an attacking right-back role. In the absence of Matias Vina, Jordan Zemura or even Lloyd Kelly, the Cherries have no first-team options at left-back so Ben Greenwood from the development squad played this role. The starting centre-backs were Chris Mepham and Marcos Senesi.
In midfield, Lewis Cook and Gavin Kilkenny played the deeper central midfield roles, whilst Jaidon Anthony, Ryan Christie and David Brooks played the attacking midfield roles behind Keiffer Moore who played up front.
The first 15 minutes were played at a very competitive pace by the Cherries and the Premier League side raced into a 2-0 lead with a stunning goal by David Brooks and a good team goal by Anthony.
As the first third played out, the pace dropped and never really recovered.
Nine substitutes were drip-fed into the game, as is normal in non-competitive games such as these. Darren Randolph and Neto both played 30 minutes each, Justin Kluivert came on in the 48th minute alongside James Hill, Illya Zabarnyi replaced Adam Smith on 54 minutes following an apparent injury for Smith.
On 61 minutes Owen Bevan, Dominic Sadi, Dango Ouattara and Philip Billing were all introduced with the latter getting a brace (both assisted by Kluivert) to put a comfortable scoreline on the board.
"Matches are the best practice for us."
Andoni Iraola speaks with afcbTV after this evening's 4-0 win over Hibernian 🗣 pic.twitter.com/baPLP14cCe
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) July 13, 2023
Two assists for this man 🅰️ @justinkluivert on his first #afcb minutes 🎤 pic.twitter.com/YVEfIfF5Yi
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) July 13, 2023
Your say…
Red_till_im_ded wrote…
Without Zemura. Without Stacey. Without Lerma. With an injured Tav, an injured Traore, and an injured Semenyo we are weaker than the end of last season which saw us lose our last 4 games on the bounce. I’d go as far as to say we still need 5 more players. Beating League One level Hibs was a good moral boost, stretch the legs, have a kickabout, get some match fitness etc but nothing more than that and no indication of how we will fare next season. – To join the conversation, click here.
