Can Bournemouth raise their game for Chelsea?

The last match in February for Bournemouth will see them return home and take on Chelsea. Frank Lampard will want a response after their mid-week battering by Bayern Munich. He felt Chelsea had a lot of work to do after such a result, but Bournemouth are equally in need of a lot of improvement for different reasons.

Where can Bournemouth find improvement?

Chelsea might be sitting in fourth place and be aiming to fight off the chasing teams for a Champions League place last season, but it is clear that they have had their won problems when you see that they have only recorded five clean sheets this season, just one more than the Cherries. It does make sense that they are being linked with a return for Nathan Aké with those kind of stats. Of the nine defeats they have suffered, of course one was by the Cherries in December. What is more, Chelsea haven't yet won a way in the Premier League this year.

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Lampard does have a striker problem with Tammy Abrahams being injured, but when he can draw on the likes of Olivier Giroud you can't say that Chelsea are toothless up front. They are averaging 1.67 goals per game and average 5.6 shots on target every game. So, already we can expect Bournemouth's defence to be kept busy.

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Losing away at Newcastle United and Manchester United this year will have increased the pressure for Lampard to get a result at Bournemouth. But Bournemouth will have a punchers chance of getting another surprise result. Getting up for Chelsea is never a problem and Bournemouth are becoming a bit of a bogey team for the London club. But Bournemouth are only averaging 3.29 shots on target per game and are averaging 0.96 goals per game. At the other end they are conceding 1.59 goals per game, so we can see why they have been losing more matches than they win.

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Raising Bournemouth's game will need more than a few smart words from Eddie Howe. Bournemouth have to play like their lives depend on it in front of their home crowd, because there aren't many more home games to get points on the board.

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