‘This Match Can’t Be Underestimated’ – A Bournemouth Perspective
- Tom Crocker from the Bournemouth Echo has previewed Bournemouth’s trip to King Power Stadium
- Leicester City welcome the Cherries on Saturday afternoon
- The Premier League fixture has a 3pm kick-off
- The Foxes were beaten 2-1 in the reverse match back in October
Currently two points ahead of City, 18th-placed Bournemouth arrive at King Power Stadium for a vital Premier League clash on Saturday afternoon (3pm kick-off), having most recently fallen to a 2-0 defeat by Brighton & Hove Albion. With nine games left for both sides, Bournemouth Echo reporter Crocker says nobody underestimates the stakes of this clash.
“This game has come around, and people have been eyeing up the importance of it for a little while,” Crocker told LCFC TV’s Matchday Live. “Generally, the performances have been okay, they’ve played teams in the top half and picked up points.
“It was Fulham and Liverpool most recently which has kept them within a touching distance of league survival. They’ve got nine games left, and six are against teams in the bottom nine so it’s in their own hands.
Training Ahead Of Bournemouth
Get a look at Leicester City's session, both indoor and outdoor, at LCFC Training Ground on Thursday.
“They beat Leicester at home earlier this season, and they recently think they’ve given themselves a chance. Everyone is waiting to see how they get on with these big games, as everyone seems to have already written them off. But they’re relatively comfortable with how they’re doing on recent form.”
With seven wins all season for Bournemouth, most recently when they beat Fulham 2-1 on home soil thanks to second-half goals from Marcus Tavernier and Dominic Solanke, Crocker explained how a slow start had people writing them off prematurely.
“The season started poor,” he continued. “But a few positive results have seen us drag ourselves back into the fight. We spent a bit of money in January with the new owner, which has helped to bolster the squad.
“They were never really cut adrift, and they now only sit in the relegation zone on goal difference, so it’s how they can turn these big games into vital points [which will determine their fate]. The fans have started to get a bit frustrated that it’s positive one moment, and then negative the next, but this will be a big game to see which way they want to go.
“They’ve let in the most amount of goals this season which never helps, obviously conceding nine at Liverpool early this season. At the other end, Solanke scored 30-odd goals in the Championship, but again hasn’t been able to repeat those numbers in the Premier League.
“He’s still very important in terms of how they play, but they can’t rely on him to rack the goals up, so they’ve had to come from elsewhere. That has been our big problem in the last couple of months.
“We get big chances, and there's a lot of pace across the frontline, but we’re struggling to convert in those moments. By giving away a few sloppy goals, it doesn’t make for a good ending."
Crocker summarised the mood of the club’s fan base by labelling it a ‘rollercoaster’ season that has the supporters believing their fate is in their own hands.
He added: “One week, the fans feel like the club have found a recipe for survival, but then the next it goes back to failing to make the most of our opportunities, so it’s very up-and-down within the fanbase at the moment.
“If we can go to Leicester and win, then it pulls us out of the bottom three, and gives us a lot of belief that we can beat these teams around us, so this match can’t be underestimated. I think they need three or four wins from the last nine, but that’s the problem, because you have a lot of teams saying the same thing.
“At the start of the season, if you’d have said to the fans that you’ll be a point off of safety at this stage of the season, I think they’d have taken it. But they’ll be able to rationalise that this weekend and understand the job that has been be done. It’s in our own hands now, and that’s the best way to have it in these types of situations.”
All times BST.