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1516 burnley turf moor 04Burnley face Bournemouth at home tomorrow in what will be the first occasion the two sides have ever met in the top flight of English football, in fact it was only three seasons ago that we met them for the first time in the second tier.

It’s not been a regular fixture on the football calendar. In terms of league games, our first ever meeting was in the 1983/84 season. We played them in the following season too and then in another seven seasons between 1992/93 and 1999/2000.

The first ever league meeting, in September 1983, ended in a 5-1 win for us. Martin Dobson and Kevin Reeves, on his home league debut, got our first two goals which were followed by a Billy Hamilton hat trick.

In total we’ve beaten them four times in home league games and drawn six with a notable draw in the 1997/98 season. It ended 2-2 with Chris Waddle scoring his only Burnley goal and Eddie Howe netting his first ever league goal for Bournemouth.

We’ll certainly be looking to keep the unbeaten record against them tomorrow and will be hoping to get the points tally moving upwards again after three successive defeats.

One of those defeats was at home, a somewhat unfortunate loss against Manchester City in which Michael Keane had an outstanding game in the centre of defence.

Keane, speaking ahead of tomorrow’s game, admitted: “It’s a big game. Bournemouth have been scoring a lot of goals but conceding a few as well, as we have in general, so it should be a good game.

“It’s one that we’ll be looking to win, especially being at home. We’ve had a few bad results now so we need to get a few points on the board and we’re treating it as a big game.”

He’s been an ever present in the centre of the defence this season alongside Ben Mee and until a few weeks ago we’d also had the same goalkeeper and full backs. Stephen Ward was then ruled out of the Crystal Palace home game, Tom Heaton has missed the last two games against City and Stoke while Matt Lowton dropped to the bench last week at Stoke.

It does look as though Heaton will be back and I suspect there could also be returns for those players left out at Stoke with Dyche reverting to his 4-5-1 formation. The one player ruled out is Johann Berg Gudmundsson who came off just before half time in the last home game with a hamstring injury.

The team could be: Tom Heaton, Matt Lowton, Michael Keane, Ben Mee, Stephen Ward, George Boyd, Jeff Hendrick, Dean Marney, Steven Defour, Scott Arfield, Sam Vokes. Subs: Paul Robinson, Jon Flanagan, James Tarkowski, Michael Kightly,  Patrick Bamford, Ashley Barnes, Andre Gray.

Bournemouth in the Premier League. It’s not something that many would have thought possible just a few years ago when they were going into administration and getting points deductions on a regular basis.

But they recovered from that, got big investment from Russian Maxim Demin, and manoeuvred their way up the divisions with what has to be said is good management from Eddie Howe. He certainly has the Midas touch on the Dorset coast and the club has hardly looked back since he returned there from Burnley back in 2012.

In winning promotion in 2015, they became the 47th club to play in the Premier League. For a while they got the ‘Little old Bournemouth’ treatment from the media but they showed they were by no means a little club. By their own admission they pushed the boat out to win promotion, breaking the financial fair play rules and paying off a big fine. And in the Premier League they have certainly not been frightened of spending big although their biggest signing has cost them nothing in terms of a transfer fee, that being Jack Wilshire who is on loan from Arsenal.

They ended their first Premier League season in 16th place but a comfortable five points clear of 18th place Newcastle, and this season they’ve made a good start and are currently in 10th place with 18 points from their first 14 games.

They can certainly score goals, as you would expect with Howe in charge. Already this season they’ve hit four against Liverpool in last week’s win and hit Hull for six back in October. In total they’ve scored 19 times although only five have come in away games which.

Leading scorer is Callum Wilson with five while ex-Claret Junior Stanislas has scored three times. He’s been one of their best players this season, adding a number of assists to his goals but he’ll be disappointing not to get a Turf Moor return having been ruled out for a few weeks, Howe said he hoped it would be weeks and not months, with the ankle injury sustained in the Liverpool win.

They will continue to be without Andrew Surman although Charlie Daniels is back in training and should come into contention.

Their team last week against Liverpool was: Artur Boruc, Simon Francis, Steve Cook, Nathan Aké, Adam Smith, Josh King, Dan Gosling, Harry Arter, Junior Stanislas, Jack Wilshire, Callum Wilson. Subs: Adam Federeci, Tyrone Mings, Brad Smith, Marc Pugh, Jordan Ibe, Benik Afobe, Ryan Fraser.

 

LAST TIME THEY WERE HERE

 

It was in the Championship and Bournemouth came to Turf Moor with the Clarets top of the league just over a year after Eddie Howe had left to return to Bournemouth.

Burnley’s winning run had come to an end a week earlier at Millwall, where we drew 2-2, and it was to be a second successive draw with Danny Ings scoring a late equaliser against his former club after they’d gone in front with a sensational goal from South African Tokelo Rantie.

It would have been an injustice had we got nothing but it could so easily have been that after Rantie scored his goal early in the second half, hitting home with a superb shot from 25 yards that left Tom Heaton helpless.

We lost our way for a while but Sean Dyche brought on Keith Treacy and then Junior Stanislas. They both had an impact and for the last half hour it was very much all Burnley with the visitors hanging on desperately.

Stanislas it was who got the ball into the box on 84 minutes. Jason Shackell won it and when Lee Camp hesitated it gave Ings the chance to head home. We might have even won it but Camp redeemed himself with a good save to keep out a Treacy free kick and we had to settle for a point.

The teams were;

Burnley: Tom Heaton, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Scott Arfield (Junior Stanislas 76), Dean Marney, David Jones, Michael Kightly (Keith Treacy 60), Danny Ings, Sam Vokes. Subs not used: Alex Cisak, Kevin Long, Danny Lafferty, David Edgar, Brian Stock.

Bournemouth: Lee Camp, Simon Francis, Elliott Ward, Steve Cook, Charlie Daniels, Lewis Grabban, Harry Arter, Eunan O’Kane (Shaun MacDonald 90+6), Marc Pugh (Richard Hughes 88), Tokelo Rantie (Wes Thomas 84), Brett Pitman. Subs not used: Shwan Jalal, Ian Harte, Tommy Elphick, Andrew Surman.

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