After our fantastic 0-3 win on Wednesday night at Stamford Bridge, which made it 6 games unbeaten and puts the Cherries in 10th place in the table. We have a home game three days later at Dean Court where our visitors are Stoke City. This time Stoke City arrive at Dean Court with a new manager. After just under five years in charge, Mark Hughes was sacked on the 6th January after Stoke City were beaten in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup away at Coventry City. Nine days later Paul Lambert was installed as the new manager.
Paul Lambert`s previous club was Wolves, he left them at the end of last May, amongst other clubs he has managed are Aston Villa and Norwich City. He takes over at a club that has had a poor run of results, with two heavy defeats in December at Spurs and Chelsea, where they conceded five goals on each occasion.
On the day Lambert took charge they had a game away at Old Trafford against Manchester United, Paul Lambert watched his side from the directors` box, they were beaten 3-0. In his first game in charge from the touchline, it was a home game, his side beat Huddersfield Town 2-0. It was Stoke`s first win since December 23rd when they were home to West Brom, who they beat 3-1. Wednesday night they were home again, this time to Watford the game ended 0-0. Stoke are in 16th place in the table on 24 points, 4 points behind AFCB.
In the January transfer window Stoke City have signed Moritz Bauer a right-back from Russian side Rubin Kazan, the fee is undisclosed. Badou Ndiye a Senegal midfielder has signed from Turkish side Galatasaray for a fee reported to be £14 million. They have also signed Greek defender Kostas Stafylidis on loan from Augsburg.
AFC Bournemouth Team News:
Adam Smith will most likely be missing through injury. Otherwise no new injuries have been reported. Amongst our players going out on loan are Connor Mahoney to Barnsley, Lewis Grabban
to Aston Villa and Benik Afobe back to his old club Wolves.
Player to watch: Callum Wilson
After our performance against Chelsea, there are a few to choose from in an all round team performance. Will go for Callum Wilson who scored a goal and was also the assist for Junior Stanislas, in a well worked goal. Callum was a constant threat to the Chelsea defence.
Stoke City Team News:
According to the injury site they are the only club with a clean bill of health.
Player to watch: Xherdan Shaqiri
Xherdan Shaqiri the Switzerland midfield International, has scored 4 times this season so far and has also 6 assists.
Match Facts & Stats
The last time we played Stoke City was back in October at their ground, the Cherries running out 1-2 winners. In the Premier League games at Dean Court, Stoke won 1-3 in our first season in the league and last season it finished all square 2-2. In all league games against them at home, AFCB have won 4, drawn 5 and lost 3. In all competitions, AFCB have won 7, drawn 7 and lost 13.
