The new season is almost upon on us and billythekid is back with his first AFC Bournemouth match preview of the season.
AFCB Won On Last Three Visits To City Ground
After a Summer break which had the Euros and the Olympics, the Cherries start their second season under Andoni Iraola as our manager. He had a good first season finishing in 12th place with 48 points, the highest number of points our club have achieved in the Premier League. When you think of the start our club had with our players adapting to a completely different style of playing and only having 6 points after eleven games, it was a really good achievement.
There have been changes at the club with Simon Francis taking over as technical director from Richard Hughes, who has left to do a similar role at Liverpool. Also, the club has appointed the former Roma general manager Tiago Pinto as president of football operations.
So we start this season without the services of Dominic Solanke who has joined Spurs for a club record fee. One or two other players could be off to clubs and our club will need to replace them. So until that window closes, our manager will just have to hope nobody else leaves and he can then pick a settled team/squad for the season ahead.
The Cherries opening game of the 2024-25 season starts on Saturday at 3 pm away in Nottingham against Nuno Espírito Santo’s Forest side. He took over as manager in December last year after Steve Cooper and Forest parted company. Nuno saw his team finish one place and six points above the relegation places, he will be hoping for a better season this time.
Our record at the City ground in the Premier League and Championship has been good. With victories in our last three visits, 2-3 (Solanke 3), 2-3 in the Premier League and 1-2 and 0-0 in the Championship. So hopefully our lads can continue those types of results in the coming season against Forest.
We last visited the City Ground two days before Christmas last year. Forest were down to ten men after Willy Boly was sent off in the 23rd minute after receiving his second yellow card. The ten men of Forest opened the scoring after two minutes into the second half with Anthony Elanga scoring. The Cherries equalised in the 51st minute through Dominic Solanke and also gave AFCB the lead seven minutes later. Chris Wood equalised for the home side in the 74th minute. But that man again Solanke scored the winner and completed his hat-trick into four minutes of injury time.
In all our away league games with Nottingham Forest, AFCB have W 3, D 4, L 4.
In all competitions, AFCB have W 9, D 7, L 6.
Forest v AFCB
Forest Win
Draw
AFCB Win
Nottingham Forest Team News
They have signed a few players during the Summer and others have left. Like our club with the transfer window still open, new players could come in and others go out. They seem to have a clean bill of health on the injury front.
Nottingham Forest Player To Watch
Morgan Gibbs-White, finished last season with 5 goals and was top with 10 assists. Always a threat when he is playing and creating goals for his other players.
AFCB Team News
The team will be without Enes Unal, David Brooks, and Tyler Adams who all had surgery for various injuries. Could see league debuts for one or two of our new signings.
AFCB Player To Watch
There will be our new signings, but with Dominic Solanke gone, Antoine Semenyo who scored 8 goals last season and Justin Kluivert with 7 goals will be the players at the moment we will be looking to score our goals, plus Luis Sinisterra who mainly came off the bench last season.
The Referee
Is none other than Michael Oliver who gave that controversial handball against Denmark in the Euros. We didn’t have him last season, but the season before we had him once and that was also at the City Ground against Nottingham Forest.
Your say…
AFCBilbo wrote…
Given that they have another dozen or so new players to integrate into their squad I think it is a good time to play them
Win number one of the season and start of our unbeaten run. – To join the conversation, click here.
