AFC Bournemouth signed off pre-season with a victory over French outfit Lorient on Saturday evening.
Cherries head coach Andoni Iraola picked the best side he could for this fixture against a side that AFC Bournemouth owner Bill Foley holds a minority stake in. Unfortunately for Iraola and the Cherries supporters that’s a side that is yet to replace Jefferson Lerma who left the club over the summer on a free transfer to Crystal Palace and currently doesn’t have a recognised right-back available with both Adam Smith and Ryan Fredericks injured.
AFC Bournemouth started that match with captain Neto in goal. Chris Mepham, Illia Zabarnyi, Milos Kerkez, Jaidon Anthony, Lewis Cook, David Brooks, Dango Ouattara, Joe Rothwell, Philip Billing and Kieffer Moore made the outfield players.
David Brooks opened the scoring in the first half, before the substitutes flowed in the second half, first Hamed Traore to replace Billing, before Andrei Ionuț Radu came on for Neto with Gavin Kilkenny and Justin Kluivert replacing Rothwell and Brooks. The next wave of subs saw James Hill and Marcos Senesi come on for Cook and Anthony
Kieffer Moore found the net with a trademark header to make the result comfortable by full-time.
A solid final pre-season outing ✅ pic.twitter.com/BV9Fw3FhUo
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) August 5, 2023
Speaking to the Daily Echo after the game Iraola said…
“I think overall we were in control of the game.
“We had to be ready also, because they were dangerous on the counters.
“But overall we did not concede a lot of chances.
“Especially the second half, when the game opened a little bit more, we had more opportunities to score.”
Post-match thoughts from the boss 👊 pic.twitter.com/uUiywHGKkc
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) August 5, 2023
Garbo wrote…
My first friendly since Real Madrid and it was just that, a pedestrian game where our tactics didn’t look anything earth-shattering from the past.
Thought the positives were:
Brooks back to some decent form
Anthony looks lively and busy
Traore had a few shots which was nice
Kluivert has some pace and ability
Kerkez good going forward
Kilkenny put himself about and could be a prospect.
Slight negs:
Cook sloppy and ineffective
Mepham poor
Moore good header for the goal but otherwise mainly Championship
Still raw and/or under par:
Ouatarra
Rothwell
Feeling positive ✔️ pic.twitter.com/qejZ1lOEng
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) August 6, 2023
Your say…
kirsikka wrote…
Plenty of positional shenanigans out there, but I think a lot of it was protecting those with knocks whilst getting more minutes into other players, even if not where you’d usually find them.
Hard to read too much into it as it’s a pre-season friendly but the longer the game went on, the poorer a team they seemed (or should that be the better we were?).
Some decent individual performances out there. Traore looked like he might challenge Billing for the starting role based on that. Kluivert looked nifty but Dango also looked dangerous. Not 100% sure which of those will get the nod but Brooks looks nailed on to start next week.
Moore is game, I’ll give him that. However, he simply isn’t suited to this role from the start. As has been said before, the last 15-20 throwing crosses in and he’s ideal. That’s when he scored, in fact.
Roll on next week. – Join the conversation, click here.
