Bournemouth head coach Andoni Iraola says his side will have a tough task up against Arsenal this weekend.
The gunners sit in second place in the Premier League, one point off league leaders Liverpool. Arsenal have not lost a game this season coming into the weekend.
Bournemouth on the other hand, entered the international break with a 1-0 loss to newly promoted Leicester City. The cherries have failed to score in games against top opponents this campaign; they lost 3-0 to Liverpool, and 1-0 to Chelsea in recent weeks.
Bournemouth boss gives opinion on Arsenal game
The Cherries lost both games to Arsenal last season, failing to score a goal in both fixtures. Arsenal managed to score seven goals against Bournemouth over two games last year.
Andoni Iraola says it will be a tough game against title contenders this weekend:
“You have to try to respect them, but maybe not so much. I would say they were the team from last season where we created less than them in both games. We haven’t been the team we want to be against them and it’s a challenge for us. You have to win duels against strong defenders and impose yourself.”
Bournemouth have only eight points from their first seven games, something Iraola believes is down to how bad his team are in front of goal:
“If you look at the stats, we should probably have more points. The big mistake we’ve made is the game we lost against Leicester. The other results are more or less logical, but we have to recover the three points we lost there. We have three games in a row against Champions League teams so we have to recover those points in a difficult way.”
“We are arriving with numbers inside the box and feel like we can score. The truth is we aren’t scoring enough for the amount of time we are spending close to the opposition box. This is the part that can make us more efficient and win more points. We trust the players we have in offensive areas and they have to continue doing things that make us play well.”
Neto returns to his parent club
Neto will be unavailable to play against Bournemouth as he is on loan from the Cherries this season. The goalkeeper’s performances last season were one of the reasons Bournemouth managed to finish in 12th place.
Andoni Iraola spoke about the effects of losing key players like Neto this summer:
“All the team have to evolve when we lose a big part of what happened last season. It’s natural that players have to assume more responsibility. We have very good characters in the changing room.”
