Tweet
- and indeed beyond.
The first of our opening batch of five League fixtures is mercifully at Home for the curtain-raiser, with three-of-five of that little cluster of matches taking place at Anfield.
Bournemouth will arrive having shopped well, finishing 9th for the 24/25 season.
Incomings -
Petrovic, goalkeeper, 25
Truffert, left-back, 23
McKenna, goalkeeper, 18
Bevan, centre-back, 21
In typical fashion, Bournemouth are buying low-cost, youthful, data-driven targets.
Zabarnyi, Huijsen and Kerkez have been the big-money sales and it must be said, they don't look to be a side that will be threatened by relegation any time soon. I tend to keep a loose eye on "the three Bs" of Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford due to how they operate, though the most intriguing of the 3 this season will undoubtedly be Brentford. Manager gone and the side somewhat gutted, they may struggle - but they're for another chat at another time.
Ninth was an impressive season for Bournemouth, with their 56-point tally being enough to land them just 10 points behind a Champion's League spot. They'll be frozen out for some years yet, but surely Europa Conference and Europa League football are things that the fanbase will expect at some stage or another.
Against Crystal Palace, Wirtz made great work of the left half-space, dragging parts of the back-line across, which frees up central space for Ekitike. This capacity to create overloads will be a prominent feature in how we attack opposition sides going forward, with Kerkez likely to pin back opposition right-backs, freeing up space for Wirtz if he drifts left. The first goal was a good example of what we can expect going forward, with the left-hand side being very congested (Kerkez, Wirtz, Ekitike, Gakpo) on a few occasions, presumably done partly to leave space for diagonals to Salah in future.
Crystal Palace worked against our set-up in the second half with patient side-to-side possession, until they managed to get Guehi free for a long diagonal to target Kerkez's side, not unlike those that Van Dijk has relayed to Salah over the past lot of years. Kerkez kept close to Van Dijk at times, which meant even more space was available to attack down the right (our left) forcing Gakpo into deep positions. At times Gakpo almost looked like a wing-back to support Kerkez, which encouraged further work for Wharton to get on the ball and get Palace's back line higher to push us, while we dropped off.
Wharton and Kamada (and then Wharton and Hughes) repeatedly punched the ball forward snappily, encouraging Palace's attackers to break into spaces behind our increasingly narrowing back-line, as Kerkez (still acclimatising to our system) tucked in very narrowly to support Van Dijk. Indeed, it appeared that he was taking the role that would often be performed by our 6 when not in possession, which may have been one tweak too many.
Our own issues were of course compounded in general by a lack of Gravenberch, a recovering-from-illness Van Dijk, Mac Allister not starting and the adjustment to four new starters in Ekitike, Wirtz, Kerkez and Frimpong, who will all need a little time to adjust to the system.
So - we saw some possible solution-solvers in the first half, whilst having eyebrow-raising moments of concern as well, largely in the second half.
Will Bournemouth be able to exploit this?
In all likelihood I think we all expect something like -
........................Alisson
Frimpong.....Konate....Van Dijk.....Kerkez
.............Szoboszlai........Mac Allister
......Salah............Wirtz........Gakpo
........................Ekitike
- for the next match, with Gravenberch coming in after his suspension in place of Endo.
So can Bournemouth exploit?
Iraola's Bournemouth side often utilise a 6 that will screen a back three in the possession phase, while the other half of a double-pivot pushes up. They press man-to-man in the back three when the ball is pushed high, helping to close passing lanes. Will the likes of Wirtz be able to work against this?
What issues are we anticipating in this game and the coming cluster?
The first of our opening batch of five League fixtures is mercifully at Home for the curtain-raiser, with three-of-five of that little cluster of matches taking place at Anfield.
Bournemouth will arrive having shopped well, finishing 9th for the 24/25 season.
Incomings -
Petrovic, goalkeeper, 25
Truffert, left-back, 23
McKenna, goalkeeper, 18
Bevan, centre-back, 21
In typical fashion, Bournemouth are buying low-cost, youthful, data-driven targets.
Zabarnyi, Huijsen and Kerkez have been the big-money sales and it must be said, they don't look to be a side that will be threatened by relegation any time soon. I tend to keep a loose eye on "the three Bs" of Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford due to how they operate, though the most intriguing of the 3 this season will undoubtedly be Brentford. Manager gone and the side somewhat gutted, they may struggle - but they're for another chat at another time.
Ninth was an impressive season for Bournemouth, with their 56-point tally being enough to land them just 10 points behind a Champion's League spot. They'll be frozen out for some years yet, but surely Europa Conference and Europa League football are things that the fanbase will expect at some stage or another.
Against Crystal Palace, Wirtz made great work of the left half-space, dragging parts of the back-line across, which frees up central space for Ekitike. This capacity to create overloads will be a prominent feature in how we attack opposition sides going forward, with Kerkez likely to pin back opposition right-backs, freeing up space for Wirtz if he drifts left. The first goal was a good example of what we can expect going forward, with the left-hand side being very congested (Kerkez, Wirtz, Ekitike, Gakpo) on a few occasions, presumably done partly to leave space for diagonals to Salah in future.
Crystal Palace worked against our set-up in the second half with patient side-to-side possession, until they managed to get Guehi free for a long diagonal to target Kerkez's side, not unlike those that Van Dijk has relayed to Salah over the past lot of years. Kerkez kept close to Van Dijk at times, which meant even more space was available to attack down the right (our left) forcing Gakpo into deep positions. At times Gakpo almost looked like a wing-back to support Kerkez, which encouraged further work for Wharton to get on the ball and get Palace's back line higher to push us, while we dropped off.
Wharton and Kamada (and then Wharton and Hughes) repeatedly punched the ball forward snappily, encouraging Palace's attackers to break into spaces behind our increasingly narrowing back-line, as Kerkez (still acclimatising to our system) tucked in very narrowly to support Van Dijk. Indeed, it appeared that he was taking the role that would often be performed by our 6 when not in possession, which may have been one tweak too many.
Our own issues were of course compounded in general by a lack of Gravenberch, a recovering-from-illness Van Dijk, Mac Allister not starting and the adjustment to four new starters in Ekitike, Wirtz, Kerkez and Frimpong, who will all need a little time to adjust to the system.
So - we saw some possible solution-solvers in the first half, whilst having eyebrow-raising moments of concern as well, largely in the second half.
Will Bournemouth be able to exploit this?
In all likelihood I think we all expect something like -
........................Alisson
Frimpong.....Konate....Van Dijk.....Kerkez
.............Szoboszlai........Mac Allister
......Salah............Wirtz........Gakpo
........................Ekitike
- for the next match, with Gravenberch coming in after his suspension in place of Endo.
So can Bournemouth exploit?
Iraola's Bournemouth side often utilise a 6 that will screen a back three in the possession phase, while the other half of a double-pivot pushes up. They press man-to-man in the back three when the ball is pushed high, helping to close passing lanes. Will the likes of Wirtz be able to work against this?
What issues are we anticipating in this game and the coming cluster?
Comment