PREVIEW: Bournemouth host Sunderland looking to go eight unbeaten | OneFootball

Europe-chasing Bournemouth looking to extend their unbeaten streak to eight as they host out-of-form Sunderland.

Bournemouth’s season so far has been defined by unbeaten and winless streaks. Starting with an 8-game unbeaten run followed by an 11-game winless streak and on Saturday they look to replicate their earlier run and move to eight premier league matches without loss.

Sunderland however, have seen a drop of form as of late failing to win any of their last 3 premier league matches. Most notably a home loss to Fulham in their last time out.

Sunderland find themselves 12th in the table 2 points behind Bournemouth with a win propelling them to 8th where Bournemouth currently reside.

Bournemouth will be hoping for a win to boost their European football hopes, a goal they have never reached in their 127-year history. A win moves the Cherries into the potential European spots. A goal Andoni Iraola played down in his pre-match press conference; claiming the squad were ‘not talking about these things [European football]’.

Iraola touched on the ‘magic number’ of 40 points and hoped Bournemouth could surpass this total at the weekend in order to ‘forget about anything related to a relegation fight’. This number often being deemed as the line of safety. However, it is highly unlikely that Bournemouth will have to look over their shoulders this season as they currently sit 13 points clear of the drop zone.

Sunderland will hope to put an end their poor run of form with the return of captain Granit Xhaka who has been central to the success of Sunderland this season. Xhaka is back in contention to start following an ankle injury and a 20-minute cameo in their last match.

Xhaka has led Sunderland into a position where they can finish in the top half of the topflight. The last time they achieved this was in the 2010/11 season. Furthermore, they will hope to have the bragging rights over local rivals Newcastle Utd who currently sit level on points with the Black Cats. Only above them on goal difference.

Regis Le Bris acknowledged Sunderland’s recent form in his pre-match press conference. He believes that even ‘when we have negative results, it does not mean we are not progressing’. Le Bris urged fans to remember ‘how difficult this league is and how young our squad is’, only emphasising further the impact of experienced Xhaka’s return.

Bournemouth will be without experienced man Lewis Cook who has suffered a hamstring injury as confirmed by Iraola. Other than this there are no new injury concerns for the Cherries and they will hope Antoine Semenyo replacement Rayan can keep up his brilliant start to life at Bournemouth, scoring two and assisting one in his first 4 games.

Sunderland will have to go without their top goalscorer this season Brian Brobbey who is out with a groin injury after being substituted in their last match. Brobbey has five goals this season one of which being the winner in the reverse fixture. The Black Cats will also go without Nordi Mukiele, the right-back has played 25 of Sunderland’s Premier League fixtures this season but was substituted off against Fulham after just 12 minutes with a calf injury.

Sunderland came out winners in a thrilling reverse fixture – 3-2. They came back from 2-0 down in that game which saw Tyler Adams score a sensational near halfway line goal for Bournemouth.

The game will take place on Saturday 28th February at 12:30pm GMT.