Anticipating Bournemouth.

[Insidious]

- 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?

[Kev0909]

Never mind them exploting us.... can we exploit a whole new back 4?

can't see how they'll do as good with kerkez and there top CB's leaving.

Is robbo fit? I'd start him this game as more the solid option whilst Grav is out.

[Steveo]

I thought this was a thread about a blue movie

[Insidious]

Never mind them exploting us.... can we exploit a whole new back 4?

can't see how they'll do as good with kerkez and there top CB's leaving.

That's very much the spirit Kev - just interested to see where the opposition may exploit our weaknesses during the little integration period of our newer players. I think we'll have loads to discuss on here for the first 15 or so matches in all comps, regardless of whether we get off to a great start or a poor one.

Which is no surprise really as this window looks to be more about creating a side that can challenge for the next 5 years than a side that wins in 25/26 but then drops off. Ideally we can have a winning season now AND winning ones later on.

[Insidious]

That's very much the spirit Kev - just interested to see where the opposition may exploit our weaknesses during the little integration period of our newer players. I think we'll have loads to discuss on here for the first 15 or so matches in all comps, regardless of whether we get off to a great start or a poor one.

Well - that incident in which we had 7 or 8 players in their box and were then broken upon (with knowing seemingly able to stop it) certainly was an indicator of tweaks to be made.

Really interested to see how different it looks with Gravenberch in the fray and the tweaks Slot will find over the next 5-8 games or so.

[miller0863]

We are the only team in the league who’s first thought is not to foul the man on the ball asap to stop the break.

Our complete lack of any sort of engagement with Semenyo was farcical

[Insidious]

We are the only team in the league who’s first thought is not to foul the man on the ball asap to stop the break.

Our complete lack of any sort of engagement with Semenyo was farcical

Indeed - a couple of our lads certainly weren't catching him once he got going, but you'd have thought that a foul could have been made around the edge of the box before he really got going.

The discussion Slot and Carra had about the rest defence state was intriguing too - Slot seemed happy overall with our positioning and our will to keep men forward.

It makes sense to hem sides in and be ready for the breaks - but we didn't look ready on that occasion at all and have been caught in pre-season.

Newcastle's midfield will certainly be capable of exploiting some of our gaps and it should make for an intriguing battle.

[miller0863]

I would worry about going to Newcastle with two in midfield against Joelinton, Bruno and Tonali, one of the strongest midfields in the league