South Coast supremacy on the line as high flying Bournemouth welcome struggling Southampton

by Conor Dunford

This weekend see’s Bournemouth host Southampton as the two sides meet to battle it out for South Coast supremacy.

Cherries surprising the league

Bournemouth have enjoyed a fantastic start to the season, and see themselves sitting pretty in 6th place in the Premier League, and dreams of European football for the Cherries are becoming more and more realistic with each passing week. Eddie Howe currently has his team above Manchester United in the league and just four points off Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool.

But, not even the most passionate of Bournemouth fans are expecting this vein of good form to continue, but they are currently riding a wave which has made them the most enjoyable team to watch so far this season. They have managed 16 goals, only Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City have scored more, and even the highly praised Liverpool front three have managed just 15 goals so far.

Stuttering Saints

Southampton, meanwhile, seem to be a team on a downward trajectory. Managerial changes, poor recruitment and consistent sales of their best players seem to have finally caught up with them. Mark Hughes came into the team in March of last season and managed to keep them up despite results not particularly improving.

One of the main issues Southampton’s fans had with previous regimes was the style of football, the negative tactics and lack of goals. Danny Ing was brought in to rectify the goals, whilst Hughes has attempted to deploy a more attacking team to give the fans what they want.

In fact, Southampton have had the third most shots in the league, behind Chelsea and Manchester City, but have converted around 5% of those chances. Only rock bottom Cardiff City have a worse conversion rate.

If Southampton are to get anything from this game, on-loan striker Danny Ings will be key to achieving this as his goals are the only thing keeping Southampton afloat at the moment, whilst improved performances from Jannik Vestegaard and Wesley Hoedt at the back are a must at this stage of the season.

Bournemouth might be without Ryan Fraser and Josh King, both picked up knocks and are to be assessed closer to the game, but the form of Callum Wilson will provide a serious threat to the struggling Southampton back line.

The history books are in Southampton’s favour. Since 2009, Bournemouth have beaten their South Coast rivals just once, a 2-0 home win in 2016. But form going into the game suggests the Cherries will give their fans the bragging rights this time around, with four wins from their last five games, whilst Southampton need to go back to pre-Hughes to find four Premier League wins.