High-flying Brighton & Hove Albion face a tricky encounter against Bournemouth at AMEX Stadium.
Victory could lift Brighton as high as second if Arsenal and Tottenham draw in the North London derby, whilst Liverpool fail to win elsewhere.
Bournemouth meanwhile can move five points clear of the relegation zone with a win.
Team News
Evan Ferguson could start for Brighton after he missed their Europa League defeat against AEK Athens due to illness.
Lewis Dunk, James Milner and Pascal Gross all face late fitness tests due to having suffered individual muscle injuries.
Julio Enciso and Jakub Moder both remain absent with knee injuries.
Bournemouth have no fresh injury concerns to report as Ryan Fredericks (calf), Emiliano Marcondes (foot), Alex Scott (knee) and Tyler Adams (hamstring) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Brighton host Bournemouth at AMEX Stadium in a 2pm BST kick-off on Sunday 24 September, untelevised live in the UK.
Stat Attack
- Brighton have won three of their last five meetings against Bournemouth (W3, L2).
- Bournemouth have won just one of their four previous Premier League visits to Brighton (W1, D1, L2).
- Victory would see Brighton claim three consecutive wins over Bournemouth for the first time since a six-match streak between April 1930 – November 1932.
- Coming into this matchweek, no defender has had more touches on the ball than Brighton’s Lewis Dunk (549).
- Ryan Christie has played more through balls than any other Bournemouth player this season in the top-flight (3).
Prediction
After their European bow failed to go to plan with three sloppy conceded goals which underlined Dunk’s importance, Brighton now must reset and sort out their defensive issues because they do leak a lot of goals despite all of their attacking quality which needs ironing out.
Bournemouth meanwhile will be happy with how they grinded out a goalless draw against Chelsea bcause they were unlucky to not score, yet they are still waiting to get the new manager bounce and start winning league games but injuries and poor end product has impacted their performances.
Now that their injury list has reduced to a minority, I do feel like Bournemouth might just start to click after a gutsy defensive effort last weekend, although they will again need to be rock solid to keep Brighton out which does look unlikely.
Prediction: Brighton 2-0 Bournemouth
Result: Brighton 3-1 Bournemouth
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