Goalscorers’ dream as Bournemouth visit Fulham

by Conor Dunford

Bournemouth travel to Craven Cottage to take on Fulham this weekend, where plenty of goals are expected for those crammed into the historic venue.

Between these two sides, they have scored 27 goals and conceded a colossal 37 albeit 25 of those conceded are by the home side, Fulham. They have been nothing short of shambolic in defence so far and are on course to conceded over 100 goals in this Premier League season. This failure to keep a clean sheet has seen them drop into the bottom three and in danger of a relegation scrap.

Despite being newly promoted from the Championship, many were expecting Fulham to be comfortable in the league this year, with their free flowing style of football and seemingly fantastic recruitment over the summer. Andre Schurrle, Jean-Michel Seri and Luciano Vietto were just some of the high profile players they managed to attract to the club over the summer.

This recruitment style has seemingly failed to work for clubs before them, namely Mark Hughes a d Harry Redknapp’s QPR back in 2012/13.

Bournemouth on the other hand have steadily grown as they have aged in the Premier League. Much of their current squad was part of the club back in League One. Eddie Howe has coached and motivated these players to become better and establish themselves as competent players in this division.

Josh King and Calum Wilson have forged a dangerous partnership upfront and can be seen as one of the best outside the top six, whilst new signing Jefferson Lerma has provided some much needed protection to the defence from central midfield.

This will be the first time these clubs meet in the top flight. Having failed to beat them outside the top division since 1994. Bournemouth ran out 5-1 winners last time these sides met, back in 2015 also at Craven Cottage. History definitely favours the visitors today, as does present form.

Fulham manager Jokanovic may need to sacrifice his footballing philosophy soon to start gaining points, but recent comments prove he is not yet willing to do that. This could be Fulham’s downfall.