Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Bournemouth have all but secured their objective of Premier League survival in their debut season, the key for Eddie Howe’s men is to secure a finish as high up the table as possible and too make sure the momentum doesn’t stop in these last 7 matches.
It’s fair to say that they may have been the case away at Tottenham before the International Break as they were outclassed at White Hart Lane. Then again it’s hard to say how much of a measure Tottenham were class and Bournemouth were bad.
To be fair to The Cherries it was probably the former rather than the latter, a rare off day this season for Bournemouth. But Eddie Howe will have no doubt analysed where mistakes were made and will look to make sure they aren’t repeated for the visit of Manchester City this Afternoon.
That defeat at White Hart Lane ended a run of three straight wins and was a first league defeat in five matches, that form at just the right time of the season has seen them pull clear of the drop zone and they now find themselves in the lofted position of 13th in the table. Considering the target was 17th at the beginning of the season they’ve made a fantastic achievement.
Their opposition today Manchester City won’t be hitting their target this season of Premier League success and if they are not careful won’t even be reaching their revised target of qualification for next season’s Champions League.
That’s in part to the fact they haven’t won back to back Premier League encounters since October and the wheels are well and truly falling off of Manuel Pellegrini’s final few months at the club. Maybe the decision to make that announcement when they did wasn’t a good idea after all.
Maybe you can’t blame it all the announcement as injuries to key players certainly hasn’t helped. After Vincent Kompany has made a return to the Physio’s Room after a recurrence of a calf injury he’s now been joined by Joe Hart and Raheem Sterling. With the latter set to be out until the end of the season.
Last time out the noisy neighbours were silenced by cross city rivals United with man of the moment Marcus Rashford getting the winner. The game will also be remembered for Martin Demichelis’ performance, one of the worst 45 minutes ever seen in a City shirt. I think he’s still probably chasing after Marcus Rashford as we speak.
That win for United has made the race for 4th place very interesting now as only a point separates places four to six. City can’t afford another slip up at The Vitality Stadium this Afternoon, like the Spurs game a fortnight ago they will be hoping that Bournemouth down tools again giving an easy run out for their opposition.
I don’t think that will necessarily be the case but I would imagine that City do have too much even with injuries to not come away with all 3 points here. They certainly need to otherwise Pep Guardiola might have to get used to the prospect of the Europa League next season. An away win.
