We look ahead to this early Saturday fixture at the Vitality Stadium with our Bournemouth vs Tottenham prediction and preview. Can Ange Postecoglou continue a strong start as Spurs boss, or will Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola pick up his first Premier League victory?
Bournemouth vs Tottenham: The Quick Hits
- The Opta supercomputer expects a Tottenham win in this game against Bournemouth, with a 53.1% chance of that result occurring.
- Three of the last four meetings between Spurs and Bournemouth have ended in a 3-2 scoreline.
- Bournemouth have gone six games without a win in the Premier League, losing five of those matches.
Match Preview
Game three of the Ange Postecoglou era at Tottenham Hotspur sees them travel to the south coast to face Bournemouth. The opening two league games of his tenure at Spurs have been encouraging for the fans, with the Australian boss quickly implementing his attacking style of play on the squad and producing decent results. Last weekend’s home win over Manchester United saw them outplay their opposition in the second half.
One player that Postecoglou will hope can end a poor run of form in front of goal is Brazilian forward Richarlison. He’s played 1,166 minutes of Premier League action for Spurs, but only has one goal from his 29 shots in the competition. More pressure is on him to perform following club record goalscorer Harry Kane’s move to Bayern Munich, with Richarlison needing one more goal to bring up the 50-goal tally in the competition.
It looks like he’ll have to do without James Maddison’s creativity behind him on the pitch on Saturday, with the England international set to miss out with an ankle injury sustained in the win over Man Utd. Maddison joins Rodrigo Bentancur, Ryan Sessegnon and Bryan Gil on the sidelines. Without the former Leicester City star in the side, the onus will be on players like Son Heung-Min, Ivan Perisic, Dejan Kulusevski and wing-back pair Destiny Udogie and Pedro Porro to provide the creative spark.
Andoni Iraola is yet to win a game as a Premier League boss since his move to Bournemouth to replace Gary O’Neil in the summer. He has to contend with some important players being sidelined this weekend, with Marcus Tavernier, Dango Outtara, Lewis Cook, Adam Smith and new signing Alex Scott all ruled out with injury.
Iraola does have forward Dominic Solanke to call upon, though. He’s been involved in both of Bournemouth’s two Premier League goals so far this term: scoring against West Ham and assisting versus his former club Liverpool. In his last appearance against Tottenham, Solanke was involved in all three of the Cherries’ goals in a 3-2 victory, setting up their opener and 95th-minute winner having also scored to put them 2-1 ahead.
Bournemouth vs Tottenham Head-to-Head
It might be wise to expect goals in this game on Saturday. The previous 12 Premier League meetings between Spurs and Bournemouth have produced 40 goals at an average of 3.33 per game, while five of their last seven league clashes have seen exactly five goals scored.
Three of their last four Premier League meetings have ended in a 3-2 scoreline, including both games in 2022-23. Bournemouth enjoyed a 3-2 away win at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in their last clash, in April. That win saw the Cherries come from behind, thanks to goals from Matias Vina, Dominic Solanke and Dango Ouattara’s injury-time winner. If they managed to win this game too, Bournemouth will do something they’ve never achieved before – defeating Spurs in back-to-back fixtures.
Last season’s meeting at the Vitality Stadium saw Spurs run out 3-2 winners thanks to goals from Ryan Sessegnon, Ben Davies and Rodrigo Bentancur. They came from 2-0 down, after Kieffer Moore’s brace for Bournemouth within the opening 50 minutes.
Three of the last five Premier League meetings between Bournemouth and Tottenham have been won thanks to a goal scored beyond the 90th minute (two for Bournemouth, one for Spurs), including both games last season.
Recent Form
Bournemouth have started the season with a home draw against West Ham on the opening weekend, followed by a 3-1 loss at Anfield against Liverpool on Matchday 2, despite taking the lead via Antoine Semenyo’s third-minute strike. This means they are currently on a six-game winless streak in the top flight, after they lost their final four matches of 2022-23 versus Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Manchester United and Everton.
Spurs’ start to life without Harry Kane has been encouraging. They beat Man Utd at home last weekend 2-0 thanks to goals from midfielder Pape Matar Sarr and a Lisandro Martínez own goal. This followed up a 2-2 draw at Brentford on Matchday 1, with goals from Cristian Romero and Emerson Royal – both assisted by summer signing James Maddison on his competitive debut for the club.
Going back to last season, Spurs have won just one of their last nine Premier League away games (L5 D3), with that coming in the final game of 2022-23 at Elland Road versus Leeds United (4-1).
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Bournemouth vs Tottenham Prediction
The Opta supercomputer has crunched the numbers before kick-off and believes Tottenham are the most likely winners of this game, with a 53.1% chance of victory. Bournemouth drew their first home league game of 2023-24 against West Ham, and the Opta supercomputer gives a 26% chance of them repeating that result, and a 20.9% chance of winning all three points on Saturday lunchtime.
Looking over the season as a whole, the Opta supercomputer deems Spurs as one of the runners for a top-four finish in the Premier League (12.2% chance), but below Brighton, Newcastle, Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and Man City. After missing out on qualification for the UEFA Champions League, Europa League or even the Europa Conference League last season, Ange Postecoglou’s side will be looking to make amends.
Bournemouth are one of the sides tipped to be in a relegation battle at the end of the campaign. Across the 10,000 simulations of the season before this match, Bournemouth were relegated 44.5% of the time, which was below only Luton Town (61.6%) and Sheffield United (62.2%) – this chance was only 0.5% higher than Everton (44.0%), however.
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