Stat Attack – AFCB v Newcastle

Written by Matt Stevenson

It may only have been a point, but the Cherries went toe to toe with Newcastle (who are in the top 4) and held their own. The xG ended up fairly similar, but Newcastle only had three big chances, two in the same minute, as Bournemouth looked to counter attack at speed. In his pre-match interview Eddie talked about quietening the crowd, for the first half-hour there was little in the way of attempts until AFCB went one-up. Senesi arriving unmarked at the back post to tap in after Ouattara’s attempted header was going wide. Watching on tv it wasn’t clear if Senesi had strayed offside, so I had to delay full celebrations until Newcastle kicked off. Four minutes later Solanke had a headed chance (rated 2 in 5 by xG) but it lacked power and Pope saved comfortably. On the stroke of half time Newcastle equalised, Saint-Maximan just kept the ball in, and then a fortunate bounce as Lerma made a tackle allowed the winger to put Longstaff through, it was a great shot (1 in 12), and an equally good save from Neto but the ball fell to Almiron, who had been left as Zemura needed to cover in centre and he finished well (28%). At half time it was level (xG AFCB 1.16, Newcastle 0.53). There weren’t too many chances in the second half, but there seemed more intent and a plan from Bournemouth, with Pope needing to clear the ball several times from outside the area as we looked to find Ouattara. The two biggest incidents were when Neto spilt a fairly routine save from Joelinton (1 in 25) to the feet of Longstaff (2 in 3) but made a save and Gordon put the rebound wide (56%). I’ve assumed a multiplicative impact so the xG doesn’t go above 1 for a passage of play. Apart from this, Newcastle rarely threatened, although neither did the Cherries, until the 90th minute when a step-over from Semenyo gave Solanke the chance to flick it in (1 in 5). He got the ball past Pope, but Trippier just stopped the ball from crossing the line. In my opinion, a draw was a fair result, but the performance was very encouraging.

Man of the match against Newcastle Senesi Vote O. Dango Vote Lerma Vote Solanke Vote Someone else Vote

The average positional map shows a band of players across the midfield, this band was advanced of the two central defenders. In attack, there was more focus on the right-hand side where Ouattara looked dangerous. The furthest forward attacker was Traore (22). Pleasingly I presume for the majority of AFCB fans, we didn’t retreat with the substitutions. The average positions of Mepham (6) for Senesi (25), Tavernier (16) for Anthony (32), and Fredericks (2) for Smith (15) were all similar to the man they replaced. Semenyo (24) was slightly deeper than Ouattara (11) but this wasn’t settling for a point as we have recently witnessed.

Traore and Zemura had most touches in the game (58 each), followed by Lerma (50), showing AFCB Traore had 47 touches in Newcastle’s half, the most by an AFCB player in an opponent’s half since Anthony versus Palace. The same applies to touches in the opponent’s final third.

Ten players had touches in Newcastle’s penalty area, Solanke has the highest with 4.

Lerma made the most passes with 36 and he and Anthony had success rates above 80%. AFCB now appear to be playing longer balls from defence as whilst the average completion rate was low (67%) this was largely dominated by Neto having 9 successful passes from 27 and Stephens, Senesi and Smith having rates below 60%. In the final third, we were most successful though, with an 87% completion rate with Traore 8 from 8, Billing 10 from 11 and Zemura 8 from 9.

AFCB attempted 17 crosses, being successful with 6 (Traore 3 from 12).

Our players tried to take on a man 21 times, being successful 14 times which was a big improvement over recent games – both Traore and Zemura succeeding 3 times, although from 4 and 3 attempts respectively.

We created 8 chances and two big chances against one of the strongest defences in the league. Traore (4) and Ouattara (3) were our main creators. Newcastle created 12 chances, none of them big.

We had 8 attempts noting that chances can be provided after saves or a defensive error and not created with Solanke having 3. We hit the target four times (2 for Solanke and 1 each for Senesi and Tavernier)

AFCB won 17 of 33 aerials duals against a big Newcastle side. The players who won the most were Solanke (6 from 9), Mepham (3 from 3) and Lerma (3 from 4)

Traore made the most tackles (6) but only won 1. Stephens won 4 from 4 and Anthony won 4 from 5. As a team, Bournemouth won 21 of 38 tackles.

As in the previous 2 games, Lerma had the most defensive actions, with 20 in this match. He had the highest number of recoveries, the joint highest number of blocks, the second highest number of interceptions and joint second number of clearances.