It's a bit windy Down South (A Match thread)

With threats of high winds and rain are the tin pot southern softie club going to try and pull another fast one in the hope that they can get the match rescheduled to help get some players back? Don't think it will work this time.

Bournmouth are a good side. The manager is a good manager but they are still tin pot. Having said that they have walloped Arsenal at home and in their last game undermanned they twatted a very good Newcastle side.

They are also our bogey side and I really really rate Semenyo who is a cracking player and a player the Muff beat us to when we were trying to get him from Brizzle.

I think with CHO possibly being out with a tight groin (ooh missus) this will be a very tight game. As much as I would love to beat them, I think we will squeak a 1-1 draw in a run of very very difficult games.

For some weird reason I would like Sosa to play on the wing instead of CHO if we have to. No silly formations, just replace him if need be. I mean it might not be a bad idea to push Neco up and use our sexy Spanish loanee Moreno at the back too. Both teams like to play on the counter but their centre back is a bean pole with a punchable face so I would love it if the Serbinator roughed him up somewhat.

Win this one and I will start to believe...

Chicago: Hoping we blow them away.

This has got 4 3 chaos written all over it.

Off to Bournemouth in a few hours. If that stadium falls down again I will not be amused.

Your best match thread title yet.

This won’t be an easy game - not least because they’re the modern Walsall in bogey team terms - but it’s easy to get a bit too carried away about their recent record (so obviously many pundits are doing exactly that - see also the “City are BACK” bandwagon after they managed to beat Everton, West Ham & Ipswich…)

Yes, they are unbeaten in 10, & their performance at Newcastle last weekend was undeniably excellent. A 2-2 draw at Chelsea the week before is decent, too; we were happy enough with our 1-1 (albeit with 10 men).

The rest of this run, however:

30 Nov Wolves (a) W 4-2
5 Dec Spudz (h) W 1-0
8 Dec Ipswich (a) W 2-1
16 Dec West Ham (h) D 1-1
22 Dec Man Utd (a) W 3-0
26 Dec Palace (h) D 0-0
29 Dec Fulham (a) D 2-2
4 Jan Everton (h) W 1-0
14 Jan Chelsea (a) D 2-2
18 Jan Newcastle (a) W 4-1

I’m not saying they’re shite and we should be stuffing them blah blah. But equally you’d only need to add Leicester (to whom they lost in October) & Saints (3-1 home win in September) to that list to make it about as easy a list of Prem fixtures as it’s possible to get in the current climate.

We also don’t tend to play in a way against which their default tactics are so good - though to be fair the same could be said vice versa.

We can win, especially if we score first. They are not the terrifying juggernaut that some parts of the press are portraying them.

Agreed, Tricky.

We have only come from behind to win once (Villa), though we also came from behind to draw vs Brighton (with 10 men) & Newcastle in the League Cup.

There have been 3 games so far where we have failed to score at all (Fulham, Arse & City). We haven’t yet had a 0-0, so obvs we lost those 3.

Only once have we scored first & lost (Newcastle) - but since we’ve only lost 4 times in total (Newcastle LC doesn’t count for these purposes), it doesn’t necessarily tell us much; we have scored first in a staggering 19 of our 24 games in all comps, so the sample size of having to come from behind is pretty small.

The combination of scoring first in 79% of games AND having an excellent defence is pretty lethal. Long may it continue!

Fuck me, Bournemouth city centre is pretty awful and run down. Sort of like a bigger version of Hucknall but on a bad day. Makes Nottingham look like Knightsbridge.

Makes Kinightsbridge look like Nottingham, you mean.

I did warn you to stay in the New Forest or similar!

Bournemouth really has gone to shit in recent years.

I mean, many towns have, but some more than others. I found it really quite sad last time I was there, 10 years or so ago, having lived there from 1994 through to 2000.

It does still have a beach though, which Poole doesn't, so there is that.

Yeah, we came to Bournemouth for a couple of weekends in the late 80s and it was a very upmarket place. Awful now though.

I think CHO is out for 3 weeks so I am interested to see what we do. Probably Jota but I do like the Williams/Moreno combo idea. Having said all that what’s the betting that Sosa starts?

Chicago: Not a Scooby.

Surely Yates back in for Hudson-Odoi with either Anderson or Domínguez on the left?

Yates in for Dominguez. Silva for CHO