AFC Bournemouth head coach Andoni Iraola made his debut in the Dean Court dugout on Saturday, with his side facing Italian opposition in the form of Serie A side Atalanta.
But it wasn’t a great first showing for the home crowd, with the Cherries falling to a 3-1 defeat. The only goal for AFC Bournemouth coming from a short-range strike from Marcos Senesi.
However, in games like these the results are irrelevant, as are the performances to a point, with the main focus being a fitness one.
In goal was captain Neto, with new signing Andrei Ionuț Radu awaiting his bow from the bench.
In defence, Adam Smith, Marcos Senesi, Illia Zabarnyi and Milos Kerkez.
The midfield was missing Philip Billing through a reported injury, Lewis Cook, Ryan Christie, David Brooks, Justin Kluivert and Jaidon Anthony started the game in support of striker Dominic Solanke.
The substitutions flowed, the first a debut for Radu replacing Neto at half-time, on 65 minutes Dango Ouattara, Hamed Traore, Chris Mepham replaced Brooks, Kluivert and Senesi. On 77 minutes Gavin Kilkenny, Kieffer Moore, Joe Rothwell and James Hill filled the shoes of Cook, Solanke, Christie and Smith.
This left Zabarnyi, Kerkez and Anthony to complete the 90 minutes.
A big thank you to every single fan that came out to watch us this afternoon 👏👏
It was great to be back home ❤️ pic.twitter.com/dyqTHClMqy
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) July 29, 2023
After the match, Iraola told the Daily Echo…
“I think it was a tough game. We knew, because the opponent work, they know each other very well.
“But I think we did quite well for the first 60 minutes. I think we had more time on the ball than the other day. We had to be more patient to attack, because they were well structured.
“But it is true every time we made a mistake in the build-up, they made us pay because they were clinical, especially in the first half.
“But overall pleased, for the first 60 minutes. From there, we were not so good on the ball. Some players were starting to get tired and we couldn’t maintain this intensity for the last 30 minutes.”
Adam Smith gives his verdict after yesterday's game against Atalanta 🗣
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) July 30, 2023
cardiffcherry said…
Poor performance, poor game. Atalanta didn’t have to do very much at all to win comfortably.
As things stand, in terms of cover across key positions, I actually think we go into this season in a worse place than last year.
Still have two weeks though.
Back at home again next week ✔️
Come and see us take on FC Lorient 👏
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) July 30, 2023
kirsikka wrote…
Not really the fault of the crowd as, again, it was a friendly but it did come across a bit like an anechoic chamber.
Brooks and Zabarnyi looked poor out there. Solanke was very weak and easily shrugged out of challenges. Kerkez looks interesting, but also possibly a walking red card in a competitive game with some of those slides if he mistimes one.
It was all a bit… tepid. Still, it was only a preseason friendly so you can’t read too much into it. However, Jim & co need to bear in mind if they’re trying to make these revenue-raising exercises that a lot of people who hadn’t seen a game for a while probably thought that was a steaming turd of performance, yet it probably did its job in terms of minutes in legs.
There’s a line to be drawn between extracting cash from locked-out fans and understanding that these aren’t proper matches and never will be.
table added…
It was great to be back at Dean Court. Good to see so many familiar faces. The programme sellers, draw ticket vendors, all the familiar sights and smells of a matchday, I still love all that stuff about supporting A.F.C.B. People out enjoying themselves with families and friends, everyone with a mutual interest : )
No D.C. Lounge today, so went for a trundle around the stadium, it’s certainly been spruced up. Appeared to be more stewards about today : )
Loads of families and new faces about. Looking at the queue for the club meaga-super-store and the amount of new kit, the shop had a good day : )
The crowd was very, very quiet today but there’s a number of youngsters willing to take over Nonny’s mantle with a regular supply of “Reddd Armeee”s from them, it’s a pity not many joined in with : )
As for the match? It seemed like a usual pre-season friendly, you either hate ’em or you tolerate ’em. Seen better, seen worse but it was much more exciting than the “Steven Seagull” friendly a couple of years back : )
We’ll only get context on it when the season starts. Me? I am still very optimistic, it’s a new man at the helm, and he’s got to turn a squad’s mindset around. For 2 seasons they’ve been programmed to look to the touchline for approval if they want to do anything spontaneous. Now there’s a coach that wants them to attack, and take risks to ( eventually ) become Goalbots. It took Eddie a while to coach the Groves/Brooks sludge from a squad good enough to play 2 leagues higher before they had total faith in his methods ( those that hadn’t worked with him before). Ando’s job is, to get them to forget what they’ve learned in the past 2 seasons, ignore the fact it bought success, trust him and it’ll get even better : ) – To join the conversation, click here.
