With the international break done and dusted, Premier League action returns on Saturday (5.30pm UK) when we head to the south coast to face Bournemouth.
Our away days in 2024 have been memorable. We haven’t lost any of our 12 league fixtures on the road, trailing for just 13 minutes and keeping nine clean sheets. That marks our best away run in the competition since August 2009, and should we extend that by beating the Cherries, it will be our 2,000th top-flight victory - with only Liverpool above us.
More importantly, that scenario would see the Reds below us in the table as we could hit top spot on Saturday night, providing us with a timely boost as we embark on another run of seven games in 22 days fighting on three fronts.
Iraola's indifferent start
The Cherries enter Gameweek 8 in 13th position, having won two of their seven league matches this term. A positive start yielded five points from their first three, which included a stunning late comeback to score three times after the 87th minute to beat Everton.
Losses to Chelsea and Liverpool stalled that momentum, but they cruised past Southampton by a 3-1 scoreline in their last encounter at the Vitality Stadium, with £40 million man Evanilson scoring his first goal and Antoine Semenyo netting his third of the campaign. However, a 1-0 loss at Leicester City two weeks ago was a disappointing way to enter the international break.
Taking last season’s late slump into account, Bournemouth have won just two of their last 10 league games, and they haven't beaten an opponent in the top half since December. The Cherries have however lost just four of their last 17 home league games, which came at the hands of Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea.
What the managers say
Arteta: "They are very well coached and they are super intense, really competitive and a clear idea as to how they want to do it. They should have had different results in my opinion, especially against the big teams and away from home. They’re going to be a big challenge and we’ll have to be at our best tomorrow."
Iraola: "Sometimes it's best not to look at every statistic when you face this kind of opposition. You have to respect them but maybe not so much, to try to focus on the things we can do to hurt them. We've created less against them in the past season, so we haven't been the team we want to be against them. It's a challenge for us."
Team news
Bukayo Saka, Thomas Partey and Gabriel Martinelli all dropped out of their national team squads during the international break for treatments, but Mikel Arteta said that none of them have suffered serious injuries.
Kai Havertz and Jurrien Timber missed Germany and Holland’s games with issues, while Ben White has been out for three weeks with a groin problem. Kai could be in contention to play against Bournemouth.
Martin Odegaard (ankle), Oleksandr Zinchenko (calf), Takehiro Tomiyasu (knee) and Kieran Tierney (hamstring) remain out.
Neto is ineligible to play against his parent club.
As for the hosts, Tyler Adams has been out all season so far following back surgery. However, he is closing in on a first-team return. The same goes for Milos Kerkez, who has trained this week and could be available for Saturday.
Talking tactics
Adrian Clarke: “Playing out from the back is always fraught with danger when you come up against a team coached by Andoni Iraola. His style of play is built around ferocious, well organised pressing. This is why no one has had more shots from high turnovers (18) than Bournemouth so far this term, from the second highest tally of high turnovers (75). Care will be needed inside our own half.
“The Cherries are very hardworking across the pitch, so this is a contest where we must work hard to win the physical battle. Rarely out-ran, they will test our resolve with their high-octane approach.
“Mikel Arteta will also be aware of how fast Iraola’s side can break on you. They travel upfield on average at 2.16 metres per second, which is the quickest of all 20 top-flight sides, and Bournemouth also rank joint third for direct attacks. The moment they win the ball back, they want to move it forward vertically, and at speed.
“One weakness they’ve shown is as slow starters at the beginning of each half. They have scored one and conceded four inside the opening half hour, and in the 15 minutes after half-time their goal difference is 0-3. Catching them cold will be one of our aims at the Vitality Stadium.
“Bournemouth’s star player has been Antoine Semenyo. The 24-year-old has three goals and an assist to his name already, so he is bursting with confidence. He will either play on the right wing, or up front as a striker, and from both roles his power, pace and quick feet are difficult to handle.
“Semenyo has produced 10 shots from his own ball carries this season and made six key passes from those dribbles too. So, it will be important for us to curtail the space he has to operate in. If we let the Cherries winger have room to run into, he could hurt us.”
Facts and stats
Bournemouth have lost 11 of their 14 Premier League games against us. Since they returned to the top-flight in 2022, we have won all four of the meetings by an aggregate score of 13-2, netting 3+ goals each time.
We are unbeaten in all 10 of our games in all competitions so far this season, we last had a longer unbeaten run from the start of a campaign in 2007/08 (first 21).
Since the start of 2022/23, we haven’t lost any of their eight Premier League games coming immediately after an international break (W6 D2), with each of their previous five such fixtures also coming away from home.
Kai Havertz has been involved in 20 goals in his last 21 Premier League appearances (13 goals, 7 assists), and has scored in each of his last four appearances in all competitions.
No player has more secondary assists (the pass before the assist) in the Premier League this season than Thomas Partey (3).
Raheem Sterling has 14 goal involvements in just 13 Premier League appearances against Bournemouth. His 10 goals are the most he’s scored against an opponent in the competition. He is the top-scoring player against Bournemouth in the competition.
Bukayo Saka has scored 49 Premier League goals. Aged 23 years and 44 days on the day of this game, he could become the youngest to net 50 for the club in the Premier League.
Only Barcelona’s Raphinha (32) has created more chances than Saka (27) across the big five European leagues this season, while the Englishman ranks top across Europe for big chances created (12) and assists (7).
Match officials
Rob Jones has been appointed to take charge of Saturday’s game. He has officiated eight games so far this season, handing out 44 yellow cards and three reds.
He hasn’t been involved in an Arsenal game since March, when he booked six players in our 2-1 win at home to Brentford.
Referee: Rob Jones
Assistants: Neil Davies, Simon Long
Fourth official: Tim Robinson
VAR: Jarred Gillett
Assistant VAR: Harry Lennard
Previous meetings
We have enjoyed two memorable away days at the Vitality Stadium since Bournemouth returned to the top-flight back in 2022/23, with last season seeing us romp to a 4-0 success on the south coast, thanks to goals from Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Kai Havertz’s first for the club and Ben White.
The season before saw Odegaard net twice to secure a 3-0 victory, made memorable thanks to William Saliba’s long-range stunner that was also his first Gunners goal. In fact, the Cherries have won just one of their seven home Premier League games against us, with that victory coming way back in January 2018.
Live coverage
Tune into Arsenal.com and the official app just before kick-off to get live commentary of the game, with Dan Roebuck and Jeremie Aliadiere talking you through all the on-field action.
You can also find out which broadcaster is showing the action live wherever you are in the world.
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