Greetings, Gooners! Hope you all had a good international break but it’s time we get back to the proper stuff.

Here’s the two most recent posts:

On Saturday, Arsenal are at home to Bournemouth.

The Managers

Arsenal

Arsene Wenger on Alexis: “I have no doubt about his mentality. He needs to come back to full fitness, which he wasn’t at Liverpool. Hopefully he will be back to his best. He had a negative experience with Chile but he’s strong mentally.”

On Ozil’s comments about Arsenal legends: “I always had a problem to understand what is a legend and what is not a legend. All the players that were here had their weaknesses as well and they had their weak games and weak behaviour. Nobody was perfect. We have to take some distance from that as well, focus on our performances and not get caught in any animosity.”

On this being his lowest point at Arsenal: “We had a performance like that at Liverpool a few years ago then we played them at the Emirates a week later and we beat them easy. Performances swing, life is movement. That doesn’t put me in denial that our performance was not good enough. I believe in my players and we have an opportunity to show that we have the quality that people want from us.”

Bournemouth

Eddie Howe on Arsenal: “I have a huge respect for them as a football club, but hopefully this one will swing our way. There’s not just one player that you have to look out for. When you play a team like Arsenal, it’s a collective with huge quality in all positions.”

On whether it’s a good time to face Arsenal: “I don’t think you can predict good times and bad times to play teams. Our only focus is on our preparations. You need to start the game well and stay in the game, it doesn’t matter what run of form you’re in – you can’t give yourself too much to do.”

Team News

Arsenal

It seems to be good news on the injury front this week – for now at least! Alexis Sanchez, David Ospina and Aaron Ramsey all returned from international duty on Thursday and will be assessed ahead of the weekend.

Wenger did mention that Jack Wilshere is “getting stronger every day” and said “I think we have no injuries”.

The boss did give an update on Santi Cazorla, who hasn’t played since last October. “The flexibility of his ankle looks good, his mobility is good and now it’s about getting back to full fitness without having any setbacks. I think it’s very difficult to set a time. Overall, I hope that after Christmas he will be available.” Wenger added that he does think Cazorla will return and be able to “play at the highest level.”

Bournemouth

Captain Simon Francis, who was sent off when these two sides met back in January, is expected to return from a hamstring injury this weekend.

The Cherries have no new injury concerns. Junior Stanislas and Callum Wilson are both still out.

Premier League Head-to-Head

P 4 W 3 D 1 L 0 F 10 A 4

4 3 1 0 10 4 Bournemouth were promoted to the Premier League for the first time in 2015-16 so there’s very little to go on in terms of history in this fixture.

Arsenal won home and away against the Cherries that season – both games finishing 2-0.

Last season, the Gunners won 3-1 at the Emirates before a 3-3 draw at the Vitality Stadium in January saw Bournemouth claim their first Premier League point against Arsenal.

The only other game between Arsenal and Bournemouth was a 3-0 League Cup win for the Gunners at Highbury in 1987.

Bournemouth have made a poor start to the season, losing their opening three games. A loss at the Emirates would make them the 9th team in Premier League history to start the season with four consecutive defeats. West Ham and Crystal Palace could also join that group this weekend.

This will be the 30th time Bournemouth have played one of the teams from last seasons “Top 7” in the Premier League. They’ve won just four of them, with their only away victory against that group coming at Chelsea in December 2015.

Mesut Ozil scored in both games against Bournemouth in 2015-16. Alexis Sanchez found the net three times against the Cherries last season, including a brace at the Emirates. Lucas Perez and Gabriel Paulista both scored their only Premier League goals against Bournemouth.

A couple of other bits of Arsenal/Bournemouth trivia: Callum Wilson has scored twice against Arsenal – both penalties. Petr Cech set a new record by keeping his 170th Premier League clean sheet in the 2-0 win over Bournemouth in December 2015. Mathieu Debuchy played one solitary Premier League game last season – against Bournemouth at the Emirates. The Frenchman was making his first Arsenal appearance in a year but lasted just 15 minutes before being forced off with a hamstring injury.

September Sun?

I think we can all agree that Arsenal have made a less than ideal start to the season. However, if recent history is anything to go by, we could be in for a decent September.

Arsenal have lost just one League game in the month of September over that last four seasons. That was a 2-0 defeat at Chelsea in 2015 – the game in which both Cazorla and Gabriel received red cards.

The Gunners have gone through September with a 100% record on four occasions in PL history. Two of these have come within the last four seasons, including last September when Arsenal beat Southampton, Hull and Chelsea.

The very first Premier League campaign saw Arsenal play five times in September, losing twice. Both Wimbledon and Blackburn beat the Gunners in Sept. 1992. It’s also the only time Arsenal have been out-scored in PL games in September – scoring just four times but conceding five.

To add to this, Arsenal also have a very good record when returning from the first international break of the season.

Since moving to the Emirates, Arsenal have lost just once in the game directly after the August/September internationals. That was the 4-2 loss at Man City in 2009-10.

Arsenal’s overall record in these particular games since 2006: P 11 W 8 D 2 L 1

11 8 2 1 This will be the 4th season in a row (and the 7th in the last eight seasons) that Arsenal have had a home match right after the international break.

A Tale From The Other Side

Ok, so there’s only been five matches ever played between Arsenal and Bournemouth and I think I’ve stretched the random September stats as far as I can. So here’s a look at a Bournemouth related story I came across this week.

In 1983, Harry Redknapp took his first major coaching role when he became the manager at Bournemouth. He had spent the previous season as the assistant boss. When Redknapp took over, the Cherries were in the relegation zone in the Third Division but he managed to help them avoid the drop.

After four years with Bournemouth, Redknapp led them to the Third Division title and promotion to the second tier for the first time in the club’s history. They spent three years in the Second Division (which included a 12th place finish – the highest ever for the club before 2013-14) but returned to the Third Division in 1990.

Brian Tiler was the managing director for Bournemouth at the time. A former Rotherham and Aston Villa player, he’d also spent some time as a manager. It was Tiler who pushed for his friend Redknapp to be appointed as the manager of Bournemouth in 1983. They were close friends who were largely responsible for what was the most successful period in the club’s history at the time.

In June 1990, Tiler and Redknapp were in Italy for the World Cup, along with Michael Sinclair (chairman of York City) and Fred Whitehouse (chairman of Aston Villa). On the night of the 30th of June, the group had seen Italy beat Ireland in the quarter-final and were then travelling to Naples to watch England vs Cameroon the next day. Near Latina, just south of Rome, their chauffeur-driven minibus was involved in a head-on collision with another vehicle. The other car was attempting to overtake another vehicle, driving at around 90 mph when it hit the minibus. The three occupants of the car were young Italian soldiers and all of them were killed in the incident.

The minibus flipped and skidded about 50 yards along the road. Brian Tiler was killed. Harry Redknapp was covered in petrol and pulled from the wreckage by Sinclair. Redknapp was unconscious and presumed dead by the ambulance crew on the scene – even having a blanket placed over his head. He suffered a fractured skull, broken nose, cracked ribs and a gash to his left leg. The Bournemouth boss also lost his sense of smell because of the incident. He was unconscious for two days after the crash and spent two weeks in an Italian hospital before being flown home in an air ambulance paid for by Bournemouth.

Harry Redknapp has said he has no recollection of the incident whatsoever. He was asleep in the minibus when the crash happened. It was only in the days after he woke up that he learned of the death of his friend, Brian Tiler. In his autobiography, Redknapp also spoke about two events on that night, “things that were, quite literally, the difference between life and death”.

After the Italy-Ireland match, Redknapp struck up a conversation with some Irish fans. They spent some time talking about Gerry Peyton, who was Redknapp’s keeper at Bournemouth and part of the Ireland squad in the World Cup (he’s also the current goalkeeping coach at Arsenal). Redknapp spent about 10 minutes talking with the Irish fans while Tiler was anxious to get going, knowing that they had to be up early the following morning to travel to Naples. “I often think about those 10 minutes. If we had gone when Brian wanted, he would still be here today and, perhaps, those kids would still be alive too.” Redknapp also spoke about Tiler nicking his seat on the bus afterwards. “That was my punishment for keeping everybody hanging about. I usually took the aisle position, Brian sat by the window because I didn’t like the breeze. But when I got on board that night, he had switched spots.”

Harry Redknapp spent two more years at Bournemouth after that summer. In 1992, he became the assistant manager at West Ham. Just two years later, he got the top job at Upton Park. Redknapp has been in charge at several clubs since his time at Bournemouth but he’ll be forever linked to the club that gave him his first shot at management. Speaking of Tiler in his autobiography, Redknapp said “losing Brian really affected me. I have had good relationships with a number of my bosses at football clubs, but there was never anyone quite like him.”

How about some goals?

And that’s that…

The Premier League is back this weekend and there’s everything you need to know ahead of Arsenal’s home game with Bournemouth. Kick off it at 3pm on Saturday. The Gunners will be looking to get into the swing of things with a victory here. Bournemouth are one of just four teams that are below Arsenal in the table at the minute and they’ll be going all out to get their first point of the season.

I’ll be back soon to look ahead to our Europa League opener with FC Koln.

Thanks for reading!