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Steffen Schmidt - August 4, 2021
Bournemouth vs West Brom
England Championship,
Date: Friday, 6 August 2021
Kick-off 19:45 UK/ 20:45 CET
Venue: Vitality Stadium.
Bournemouth and West Brom have the honor of raising the curtain to the new Championship season on Friday evening at Vitality Stadium.
We will have the chance to enjoy a derby between two promotional contenders right at the beginning of the 2021/22 Championship campaign.
Both Bournemouth and WBA will enter the clash on a high, following impressive attacking displays in the last weekend’s respective wins.
The Cherries jumped above their maiden League Cup obstacle in some style, eliminating lower-division Milton Keynes Dons 5-0 seven days ago at Vitality Stadium.
David Brooks stole the show with a brace, while Dominic Solanke, Philip Billing, and Christian Saydee also added their names to the scoresheet on the occasion.
It will be very interesting to see how the Cherries will perform at the beginning of the new season under the new manager as Scott Parker (the man who got relegated from the Premier League last season with Fulham) took over Jonathan Woodgate at the helm.
Parker has reasons to worry in terms of his outfit’s defensive displays in pre-season as Bournemouth shipped two or more goals in each of three friendlies this summer (against Linense, Granada, and Chelsea).
Bournemouth’s defensive woes will be the music to the ears of Grady Diangana and Karlan Ahearne Grant who will make one of the deadliest attacking lines in Championship.
They were both on target in the last weekend’s 0-4 drubbing of Birmingham City and we fancy their chances to exploiting the Cherries’ vulnerable back line on Friday night.
The visitors have been much more impressive during the pre-season. They did not concede a goal at all this summer, keeping clean sheets in four successive outings (against Woking, Sheffield Wednesday, Watford, and Birmingham City).
As we expect Grant & company to exploit Bournemouth’s leaky defense on Friday, the value is fantastic with West Brom to avoid a defeat at Vitality Stadium at the odds of 1.61.
