Brunt likely to bow out at Bournemouth

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·10 January 2025

Brunt likely to bow out at Bournemouth

AFC Bournemouth v West Bromwich Albion; Vitality Stadium, Saturday 11th January 2025, 3pm

Albion travel to Bournemouth on Saturday for what is likely to be Chris Brunt’s last game in caretaker charge of the team with the expectation that a new man will be appointed before next weekend’s visit of Stoke City. It will be the third FA Cup meeting between the two sides, all of which will have been at Dean Court with the record standing at one win apiece. This will be first time that the clubs have met in a cup competition when the Cherries have been in a higher division.

Indeed, Bournemouth have never been in such a lofty position at this stage of the season before, sitting 7th in the Premier League on an eight-match unbeaten run that has been them beat both Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United. The last time the clubs met in a cup competition, the Baggies were the Premier League team while the Cherries were down in League One.

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Predicting a team for the FA Cup Third Round is never easy these days as managers tend to use cup competitions to rest their first teamers and give opportunities to squad players. I firmly expect Andoni Iraola to take that approach, even though most would consider the FA Cup to be the Cherries’ best opportunity for silverware, or at least to progress further in the competition than they have before (they’ve never been beyond the quarter-final), but for Chris Brunt, I suspect the selection will be more nuanced.

Firstly, Brunt’s squad is not strong enough to replace most of the team; secondly, with a clear week either side of the game, there should be no concerns as to needing to rest too many players, and, thirdly, it is likely to be Brunt’s last game in charge of the side with the appointment of Corberán’s replacement expected before the next Championship fixture. While I’m sure he will not jeopardise the club’s overall aims, he has no need to keep any fringe players sweet knowing that everyone will be getting a clean slate when the new man rocks up.

There will be changes of course. I would expect the recalled Caleb Taylor to get a start while Joe Wildsmith is likely to be given a run out in goal, but there are no obvious options beyond that. Perhaps, the lesser used players like Frabotta, Račić Swift, Diangana and Wallace might get a run out and would the coaching staff be brave enough to give Devante Cole a start? I’ve always been a fan of the FA Cup so would like the side to be relatively strong and, furthermore, Bournemouth’s second string will be no mugs and too weak a side could risk being on the end of a morale-crushing heavy defeat. Brunt stated in his press conference on Friday that the side he selected would be strong enough to compete, so I doubt we’ll see too many kids.

Iraola has proved to be something of an inspired appointment for Bournemouth having taken charge in the summer of 2023. The former Rayo Vallecano boss guided the Cherries to a comfortable 12th-placed finish last season and has built on that in the current campaign leading them to victories over both Manchester clubs, including a first ever win at Old Trafford, and they currently sit in seventh spot very much in the race for a European spot and eclipsing their best ever league finishing position on 9th achieved under Eddie Howe in 2016/17, albeit they won more points last season (48 compared to 46).

The Spaniard has been rocked in recent days with injuries to record signing Evanilson and striker Enes Ünal who will both be out for extended periods, but he still has the talents of Dango Ouattara, Justin Kluivert and Antoine Semenyo to call on should he feel the need. Former Leeds winger Luis Sinisterra and ex-Boro man Marcus Tavernier are also ruled out along with Alex Scott, Julián Araujo, Marcos Senesi and Adam Smith.

FA Cup Third Round day may not be what it was when every team looked to play their strongest side, but it is still a special day on the football calendar and there are still a few surprise results every year. Let’s hope that the Baggies can produce one of them on the south coast.

History

Saturday’s match will be just the 24th meeting between Albion and Bournemouth with more than a third of those coming in the last decade. The Cherries joined the Third Division (South) in 1923 and spent the next four decades in the third and fourth tiers – they hold the record as the longest continuous members of the Third Division having remained in the the third tier until their relegation to Division Four in 1970. They first won promotion to Division Two in 1987.

Before then, the clubs had met just once, in the same stage of the same competition as this weekend – the FA Cup Third Round in 1955 saw Vic Buckingham’s side start their defence of the trophy at Dean Court against Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic, as they were then known, and the game was decided by a goal from Albion’s Stuart Williams. On the home team that day was a certain Laurie Cunningham – not the one who would delight Albion fans a quarter of a century later, of course, but a full-back born in County Durham!

The teams have met once more in the FA Cup, again in the Third Round and again at Dean Court. On that occasion, in 1999, future Cherries’ manager Eddie Howe was the only goal scorer as Denis Smith’s team exited the competition at the first hurdle.

The Baggies have won only three times at Dean Court. After the cup win in 1955, Ossie Ardiles’ team recorded a 1-0 win in Dorset in January 1993 thanks to the first of two goals that David Speedie scored for Albion in his loan spell that season. The most recent victory was in the League Cup in August 2011. The Cherries were in League One when Premier League Albion went to the south coast and won 4-1 thanks to goals from Jerome Thomas, Marc-Antoine Fortuné (2) and Simon Cox.

Albion have gone out of the FA Cup at the Fourth Round stage in the last two seasons but were beaten in the Third Round in 2022 by Brighton and Hove Albion and in 2021 by Blackpool on penalties. The Baggies reached the fifth round in 2020, losing to Newcastle United, but haven’t gone beyond that stage since 2015 when they were beaten in the quarter-final by Aston Villa.