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25 mins: The visitors’ longest and finest spell of possession sees Woltemade’s flick release Murphy, but he’s too wide for it to be worth shooting, so he turns back and a couple of passes later Tonali has a decent shooting chance from 20 yards, from which he fails to produce a dangerous shot.
24 mins: Willock runs down the left, but his pass infield is cleared. Still, it’s something.
21 mins: Everyone’s very busy indeed. It’s a bustly game. Bournemouth make inroads into Newcastle’s penalty area again, but the flag goes up again.
17 mins: Bournemouth win a corner, but float it too close to Pope.
15 mins: GOAL! But the lino has his flag up! It’s passed in to Evanilson, who squares across goal and Brooks turns it in! But it’s given offside, and VAR checks and agrees.
14 mins: Now Murphy shoots left-footed from 20 yards, but it’s not a great effort and flies well wide.
12 mins: From a Newcastle corner Petrovic comes flying off his line to punch as far as Tonali, who gets excited by the lack of goalkeeper in the Bournemouth goal and has a shot, which deflects to Woltemade, who was one of three offside players.
11 mins: Newcastle finally play some football, culminating in Murphy running onto Tonali’s pass into the penalty area and shooting from an acute angle into Petrovic.
10 mins: A super start from Bournemouth, full of intensity and pace, if not yet telling moments of quality in the final third.
9 mins: Save! An excellent run from Brooks ends with a backheel to I think Adams, whose first-time shot from the edge of the area is kicked away by Pope.
8 min: Bournemouth hog the ball for an age, but at the end of it all they toss it long towards Semenyo and it bounces beyond him and into Pope’s hands.
6 mins: It’s Newcastle’s fans making all the noise, and Bournemouth’s team making all the play.
4 mins: Nearly a chance! The ball is given to Scott, who has a fairly simple pass to release either of two runners about to burst untracked beyond the Newcastle defence but can’t find it.
1 min: First impressions: there is a woman sitting just behind Andoni Iraola as the TV camera looks at him wearing some very impressive cherry-flavoured knitwear.
1 min: Kick-off!
Right, players out and everything ready for kick-off.
“G’day SB,” writes Chris Paraskevas, who appears to be a concerned Australia-based Newcastle fan. “I’m intrigued by our lineup, which contains quite a few personnel changes,” he says. “I’m a little worried that the wholesale change (particularly in defence) might cause us more grief than good. My worries are also compounded by the fact that the family of magpies I’ve befriended in the backyard will be targeting me with a few spring swoops tomorrow morning. Things were going so well, I literally had them eating out of my hand until the family dog visited today and pissed them all off by trying to eat their snacks. The big bird (nickname: Big Al) gave me the 100-yard stare / hairdryer treatment before it flew off.”
British magpies can be a bit vindictive, but Australian magpies are next-level evil.
Sky have inevitably been largely talking about Arsenal and Manchester City in the build-up to this game, but their attention has finally shifted, with the players already in the Bournemouth tunnel.
Eddie Howe has a chat, after making seven changes to the team that started the Barcelona game:
We’ve looked at the players’ loads and tried to make the right decisions so we’ve got fresh energy. Bruno [Guimaraes] been an everpresent and he’s so important for us but he’s really done the miles. Barcelona was a big high. But such a quick turnaround here we thought for Bruno’s sake, we have to look after him. I think we’ve got real flexibility within the lineup and good players coming in. But of course we need to match Bournemouth’s intensity. It should make for a great game.
The teams!
The managers have made their selections, and then they have written those selections down on paper and given them to the referee and now there’s no changing them (unless the referee gives them special dispensation). So, here are the starting line-ups:
Bournemouth: Petrovic, Jimenez, Diakite, Senesi, Truffert, Adams, Scott, Semenyo, Tavernier, Brooks, Evanilson. Subs: Dennis, Soler, Christie, Doak, Kluivert, Adli, Junior Kroupi, Hill, Milosavljevic.
Newcastle: Pope, Thiaw, Botman, Burn, Livramento, Willock, Miley, Tonali, Hall, Jacob Murphy, Woltemade. Subs: Ramsdale, Trippier, Lascelles, Joelinton, Barnes, Krafth, Osula, Elanga, Guimaraes.
Referee: Robert Jones.
And while we’re here, there’s one other Premier League game with a 2pm kick-off and here are the starting lineups for that one:
Sunderland: Roefs, Hume, Mukiele, Alderete, Mandava, Rigg, Xhaka, Sadiki, Talbi, Isidor, Le Fee. Subs: Patterson, Neil, Ballard, Geertruida, Brobbey, Mayenda, Adingra, Traore, Masuaku.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Mings, Digne, McGinn, Rogers, Kamara, Buendia, Guessand, Watkins. Subs: Bizot, Lindelof, Elliott, Torres, Malen, Sancho, Jimoh, Maatsen, Bogarde.
Referee: Sam Barrott.
Hello world!
Newcastle have played five games so far, including Thursday’s Champions League encounter with Barcelona: two goalless draws (there have only been five 0-0 draws in the Premier League so far this season, so they’re responsible for 40% of them), two defeats by a single goal and one win by a single goal. Bournemouth have also played five times, including their Carabao Cup defeat to Brentford: three wins by a single goal, one defeat by two goals (where they were drawing in the 89th minute), and that Carabao Cup game, which doesn’t really count because Andoni Iraola made eight changes, and it’s the Carabao Cup, but for the record they lost 2-0. In league games Newcastle’s opponents have 6.5 shots per 90 minutes and a combined xG so far of 2.1, in both cases the lowest in the Premier League, while Bournemouth’s figures are 9.0 and 3.5, in both cases the third lowest. All of which suggests we’ve got two well-organised teams who successfully restrict opponents’ chances without scoring particularly freely themselves, and as a result play closely-contested matches.
Bournemouth’s positive start – they would go second, at least for a while, if they win this – is particularly impressive given their summer outgoings. “For me it’s too early to say we’ve started very well,” Iraola said in his pre-match press conference. “We’re still in this process of getting used to new players. We’re doing it with good results, but it’s not a guarantee it will continue like this. The games we’ve won have been kind of tight games. The challenge is to compete against different opposition. We know how good Newcastle are, we know we have to be very good if we want to get anything from the game, but the performance of my players give me some confidence, because I’ve seen them doing the right things and I hope they can do it again.”
As for Eddie Howe’s pre-match thoughts, well, PA Media filed two stories from his press conference, one headlined “EDDIE HOWE TIPS ANTHONY ELANGA TO BE ‘VERY USEFUL’ FOR NEWCASTLE THIS SEASON” and the other “NEWCASTLE BOSS EDDIE HOWE VOWS TO REMAIN PATIENT WITH NICK WOLTEMADE”, neither of which suggests he had anything hugely thought-provoking to say. He’ll be hoping his team do the talking on the pitch, inevitably.
Anyway, and to summarise, this could be a thriller (sure, it could also end 0-0, but I’m an optimist). Welcome!
