Arsenal return to action Saturday evening against Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium. What most Gooners think is a simple fixture could be tricky.
Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola is encouraging his players to be clinical against Arsenal. Bournemouth has only scored 8 goals in 7 games this season, and there is fear that they should have scored more given the 13 big chances they’ve missed. With only two wins thus far, they’d probably be better off if they’d buried their chances.
The Cherries would like things to change, and their head coach, Iraola, believes that if his squad can just be clinical, beginning with the Arsenal game, they would be able to compete and produce results.
The Cherries manager told the BBC after the narrow Leicester defeat, “It’s difficult to explain; you need to score. We had a disallowed goal, hit the post, the crossbar, we had enough chances to win the game.
“We played quite a level first half. In the second half, we were pushing them a lot, put pressure on them. We played in their half. We had a lot of crosses, but their keeper made some very good saves. We have to be more ruthless.”
As much as the game against Bournemouth is the easiest of Arsenal’s post-international break matchups, one can’t help but feel the team has to bring their A-game to that match. While the Cherries aim to score more goals, it’s concerning that our Gunners appear to be conceding more goals this season. They have already conceded 6 goals in 7 games, a significant amount given that their main rival, Liverpool, has only conceded 2 goals in the same period.
Arsenal need to tighten up defensively, and they can start by denying goal-hungry Bournemouth the opportunity to score.
What do you think?
Darren N
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Bournemouth certainly aren’t another Southampton (and Arsenal made pretty heavy weather of them until the very end, despite all the shots they recorded).
I think we can expect a more “open” game generally – a better test if you like – but one that Arsenal should expect to get something from (hopefully a win) nevertheless.