After a game dominated by the Cherries at home against Leicester which only brought 1 point in a goalless draw, the team travel to Wembley Stadium for the second time in the club`s history to play Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs) in a Premier League game, Wembley being the Spurs home for one season while their new Stadium is being built.
The last time AFC Bournemouth (AFCB) visited Wembley (the old stadium with the twin towers) was back on Sunday 19th April 1998 against Grimsby Town in the Autowindscreens Shield Trophy Final. The Cherries took 32,000 fans that day and had the biggest following in the stadium, it was the time of the ‘dreaded` Golden Goal, Grimsby scored the Golden Goal in extra time and Wembley Stadium all of a sudden had an eerie silence, very strange moment for the Cherries fans with the game coming to a sudden end.
This time AFCB will be visiting the New Wembley Stadium with only an allocation of 3,000 tickets for away fans in this ground that has a capacity of 90,000. So far it hasn`t been a very good ‘home` ground for Spurs in the three games played there they have only yielded two points.
Spurs have brought in five new players during the Summer, the highest paid being £38.4 million for Ajax centre-back Davinson Sanchez. Other signings, Fernando Llorente £12.1 million from Swansea, Serge Aurier £23 million from PSG, Juan Foyth for an undisclosed fee from Estudiantes and Paulo Gazzaniga from Southampton for an undisclosed fee. One player going out of the club was Kyle Walker the right-back moving to Manchester City for £50 million.
This season so far Spurs have done better away from home, winning all four games. They came out 2-0 winners against Newcastle, went one better against Everton winning 3-0, beat West Ham 3-2 and in their last game beat Huddersfield 4-0. At Wembley they lost 1-2 to Chelsea and drew 1-1 with Burnley and 0-0 against Swansea. After 7 games Spurs are in 3rd place in the table with 14 points, 10 points above AFCB who are in 19th place.
The Cherries so far have found it hard to finish off chances and only found the net four times, last season it was six after 7 games. With our strike force this season you would probably have expected more, but after 7 games last season Josh King had only scored twice, this season after the same number of games he has scored one goal. Jermain Defoe after 7 games, 5 starting and sub twice has also scored once (hit the woodwork twice). Last season after 7 games for Sunderland he had scored four times. Josh King finished the season with 16 Premier League goals and Jermain Defoe scored 15, the same number he finished the previous season with and after 7 games in the same season he had scored twice. So both players given the service hopefully will be there or thereabouts at the end of this season.
Tottenham Hotspur Team News:
After being out for some time, Danny Rose and Erik Lamela have returned to first-team training. Moussa Dembele and Victor Wanyama are close to returning, could be this Saturday according to some reports.
Player to watch: Harry Kane
Harry Kane, scored three braces in the last 3 away games in September and is always a danger within shooting distance. After a blank August as far as goals are concerned, September has been a good month for Harry Kane, he also got a brace and a hat-trick in Champions League games. He also scored in the two World Cup qualifying games this month.
AFC Bournemouth Team News:
Brad Smith the latest player with a knock. Ryan Fraser is out with a hamstring injury, but hopefully Josh King will be available after having a tight hamstring.
Player to watch: Lewis Cook
Lewis Cook, see if he can produce the performance shown against Leicester this Saturday at Wembley. Also Andrew Surman who has looked very sharp in the last few games.
Match Facts & Stats
In our two games against Spurs at White Hart Lane, we lost both of them, 2016-17 season 4-0 and 2015-16 season 3-0. At Dean Court last season we drew 0-0 and in 2015-16 lost 1-5. The only time we have beaten Spurs was back in 1956-57 season in the 5th round of the FA Cup, we were comfortable 3-1 winners.
