Premier League: Sunderland- Bournemouth
Sunderland did us a big favour with a 4-2 win at fellow relegation battlers Swansea city recently, ahead of which I wrote .............
I wrote some relegation market notes on Sunderland last week and they are reproduced at the foot of this email. Not too much has happened since, they lost at Arsenal as expected and hoped or (by me !)in the FA Cup over the weekend and now they just have one thing on the agenda and that is EPL survival. Of course, the same is true about Swansea and their cup defeat which came against a League 2 team was far more humiliating and "unexpected". Sam Allardyce has already signed Jan Kirchoff a central defender from Bayern Munich and is said to be close to two other deals which might be completed before the weekend. I guess that ultimately their top flight fate will be decided by performances at the Stadium of Light, but they will have to pick up some points on the road and this match, against one of the few teams they can catch, is absolutely vital and the visitors cannot afford to go home empty handed. Swansea have played a little better since Gary Monk left the club, but they have still won just twice in 18 starts, once against Aston Villa and the other came against a West Bromwich Albion team who make tactical errors, were denied two penalties and gifted the hosts a goal with a goalkeeping blunder. It feels like they need a lot to go their way to win a game right now and I have to take the visitors with the handicap start. Six of 11 h2h meetings, including the last three have all ended in a draw and I suspect that the visitors will set up for one point and hope to steal something on the break and with Swansea having failed to score in 9 of their last 16, that seems a good policy and I would not even consider the hosts at odds on quotes.
They could not follow up at White Hart Lane last weekend, but again scored first (fourth game in a row) and they are giving themselves a chance by starting on the front foot, being far more aggressive and they have upped their game in the starts against other teams at the foot of the table under Allardyce, beating Swansea, Villa and Newcastle United. Bournemouth have given themselves a little breathing space over the bottom three, but remain one of the teams the hosts are looking to catch and the gap would be down to three points if Sunderland could win this afternoon.
Bournemouth arrive here on the back of a 3-0 defeat of what was, at least that day, a terrible Norwich City team, a few days earlier they had hosted West Ham United and my notes went a lot like this .......
These two played out a real thriller in the reverse fixture at Upton Park which Bounemouth won by the odd goal in seven and I expect if not something similar, then certainly goals and both teams on the scoresheet. The hosts and boss Eddie Howe have been growing into their EPL selves in recent weeks and have hauled themselves out of the drop zone. However, they seem far better suited to playing on the road and that was certainly the case last season in the Championship, when they were a pleasure to watch for 45 games with their free flowing attacking football, the one game they diverted from that, you will win no prizes for guessing, was at Griffin Park where for 90 minutes they turned into game stifling, time wasting, diving , thugs and got what they deserved in a 3-1 defeat . Not sure what happened that day, maybe they took a (Dr Jekyll) My Hyde potion on the team bus, but they tried to be something they were not and thankfully, that was a one off.
They spent big this week dishing out £10m for Benik Afobe from Wolves, he trained with the team yesterday and might be on the bench tonight, former Brentford striker Lewis Grabban has also rejoined the Cherries from Norwich City and he will not need much time to get back up to speed with the team mates he left the summer before last, their arrival will certainly increase competition for starting places offensively. Bournemouth have conceded an average of 1.7 goals per game, the most of any team outside the drop zone and United, who have scored 11 goals in five starts away to top 8 teams under Slaven Bilic will be confident of adding to that number in what seems sure to be a fairly open encounter. Their goal tally has dropped in recent away starts, but now that Dimitri Payet is approaching full fitness again, that should rise once more, he has created just shy of 50 goalscoring chances in the Premier League this season, almost double any other Hammers player. Their last league game , a 2-0 win over Liverpool in East London featured the second most attempts on goal of any top flight game this season and there should be plenty of goalmouth action again this evening.
The Hammers won 3-1 and whilst Bournemouth made indeed be better on the road ( see above), those two results highlight that you are never quite sure what you are going to get from the Cherries and the hosts look too big today in my book. Big Sam has added Senegal striker Dame N'Doye to his squad and been busy clearing out 4-5 others deemed surplus to requirements, to open up funds and places to bring in more of his type of players and we can expect more business to be done over the next ten days or so. The head coach has got his troops in battle mode and said in build up : "At all costs, we cannot lose this game, for me. We must try to win it if we can, but if we can't, make sure we don't lose it because the distance then between Bournemouth and us, even though people say there are a lot of games to go, there aren't." He has got his senior players up and performing and Jermain Defoe has scored more Premier League goals (five) in 2016 than any other player and Adam Johnson has twice as many assists as anyone else.
1.5 units Sunderland level ball 2.11 asian line/Sportmarket.
Bournemouth have not scored a single goal in the 15 minutes (31st - 45th )before the half time break , conceding eight times. Sunderland have scored through this period in two of their last four starts. Hosts are an imppressive 5-1 (goals scored- conceded) in the final 15 minutes of home games, that +4 goal difference is a surprising EPL best.
Good Luck.
