Written by billythekid
It’s good to be a Cherries fan at the moment with our team unbeaten and top of the league with 18 points, AFCB’s highest total of points after the first 8 games of a season since our promotion-winning 2009-10 season in League 2, then we had 21 points. Also, our 0-1 win against Cardiff City, last Saturday, was the first time AFCB have won against Cardiff City on their ground since the game in Division 2 on Tuesday 7th March 2000, the score that time was 1-2, our goals from Stein and Hughes, the attendance then was 4,389.
After a week’s break from matches, the next game is on Saturday at 3 pm at Dean Court against ‘the Hatters’ Luton Town. Luton Town have this season lost the services of two key players, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall in midfield and James Collins their leading scorer last season. Dewsbury-Hall has returned to Leicester City after being on loan and Collins has signed for Cardiff City after turning down a new contract. Last season in his first season in charge of Luton Town their manager Nathan Jones team finished in mid-table in 12th position on 62 points.
This season Luton Town started off the season well with a 3-0 home win over Peterborough United. This was followed by two away games, first, they had a visit to the Hawthorns to play one of this season’s favourites West Brom, who hope to go straight back up into the Premier League after being relegated from it last season, West Brom won 3-2. The Hatters were more fortunate in their next away game, beating Barnsley 0-1. Then it was back to Kenilworth Road for their next home game against Birmingham City, Luton Town suffered their heaviest defeat so far this season 0-5 and heaviest since the same score against Reading at home in the 2019-20 season. The next four games all ended in draws, at home 0-0 against Sheffield United, away at both Blackburn Rovers 2-2 and Bristol City 1-1. The most recent game was at home against Swansea City, Luton Town having been 3-0 up at half-time, then let a win slip from their grasp and Swansea City came back in the second half to finally make the final score 3-3. In three of their away games, Town have come back from being behind, twice securing draws.
Our most recent meeting with Luton Town was in January this year and it proved to be a controversial one with Jefferson Lerma shown a red card after 26 minutes after catching a Hatters player in the face with his arm after being knocked off balance in the air by another Town player. Playing with 10 men AFCB finally conceded a goal in the 67th minute with on loan Dewsbury-Hall scoring the winning goal.
In all our home league games against Luton Town, AFCB have W 14, D 7, L 7.
All competitions, AFCB have W 24, D 17, L 21.
AFCB v Luton
AFCB Win
Draw
Luton Win
AFCB Team News
Apart from Junior Stanislas and Lewis Cook, no new injuries have been reported.
AFCB Player To Watch
Dominic Solanke, scored in our last three home games, including two against Blackpool.
Luton Town Team News
They have a big injury list at the moment, with Fred Onyedimna, Admiral Muskwe, Amari Bell and Allan Campbell amongst them. The latest is Danny Hylton picked up an injury in the warm-up before the Swansea game, according to reports he is the third player this has happened to in their last three games, the other two Muskwe (mentioned above) and Sonny Bradley.
Luton Town Player To Watch
Luke Berry in midfield, has had injury problems but has come back this month with 3 goals in two games, two after coming on as a sub in the 59th minute away at Blackburn Rovers, with his side 2-0 down, to earn them a draw. Also their 23-year-old forward Elijah Adebayo, he also has 3 goals with a brace in his last game against Swansea City. Both these players are the Hatters joint leading scorers.
The referee for this game is Tim Robinson.
So far this season in his 6 Championship games in charge he has issued 23 yellow cards and 0 reds.
Last season we had him for three games:
Away at Watford 1-1 and 5 yellows.
Home against Millwall 1-1 and 3 yellows.
Home in the play-off against Brentford 1-0 and 2 yellows.
Your say…
MB1980 wrote…
It will be an interesting test, imagine they’ll line up defensively hoping for a point.
The good thing with how we seem to be playing is a threat all over the pitch. Move the ball around well, finding pockets of space as they can’t double up on everyone.
Last season we d be hoping for a Danjuma moment of magic and wouldn’t look like penetrating beyond that, ending up in a potentially predictable stalemate, barely creating any chance. – Join the conversation, click here.
