AFC Bournemouth v Southampton Betting Tips

One of Sunday’s Premier League matches is a south coast derby between Bournemouth and Southampton.

Bournemouth have been a mixed bag recently and have followed up victories with defeats rather than getting any sort of consistent run together. Despite this inconsistent set of results, The Cherries are sitting in the top-ten, albeit on goal difference, and so can be happy with their performance so far.

As expected with an attacking side, Eddie Howe’s men do not have too much trouble scoring goals and they have scored in each of their last six Premier League matches. Unfortunately, with such an open style comes defensive vulnerability and it is no surprise that The Cherries have conceded 25 goals – more than any other side in the top ten – whilst they have also conceded nine in their last four matches. Having said that, they have kept two clean sheets in their last five so not all is terrible at the back.

Although Bournemouth are a bit inconsistent at the moment, their troubles tend to come away from home and in fact, Howe’s team have a good record at their home ground of the Vitality Stadium with just one loss in their last five and only two defeats at home all season. Recent victories at home against the likes of title contenders Liverpool and reigning champions Leicester City show they have what it takes to beat the bigger sides in the division on home turf.

Southampton sit just above Bournemouth in 9th place despite a relatively poor run in recent weeks with just two victories registered from their last eight Premier League matches. Although they would have taken a point at the start of Wednesday’s match away at Stoke City, after The Potters were reduced to ten men early on, Southampton will feel they should have taken all three back to St. Mary’s Stadium.

The Saints have one of the meanest defences in the league having conceded just 15 goals in 16 top flight games as well as registering four clean sheets in their last five matches. Unfortunately they look at bit toothless going the other way and their poor record of just 14 goals in 16 matches is the joint-lowest in the entire division. This lack of bite was once again demonstrated against Stoke on Wednesday, but if Claude Puel can sort his side’s goal deficiencies in the January transfer window, then they have a good chance of doing really well this season.

Going to Bournemouth will not be a confidence booster for The Saints as their away record is much less than impressive with them last notching a win on the road back in September. Two defeats at struggling Hull City and Crystal Palace in recent times will hardly have helped their mindset when they travel away from St. Mary’s.

I think we will see a couple of goals here, but not too many given Southampton’s good defensive record and so I have firstly gone with ‘2-3 Total Goals’ at 11/10. Bournemouth have the attacking ability to cause real problems for teams at home. In what could be a tight game between two mid-table sides, this allows flexibility on the result.

However, if you fancy something with more return then a correct score bet of ‘Bournemouth to Win 2-0’, at 15/1, really catches the eye. In both of last season’s matches between these two, the home side won 2-0 whilst in terms of the overall head-to-head record, the home team have won 2-0 in four out of six meetings.

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