Tonight's match against Bristol City is going to be a special match for Lloyd Kelly. He signed for Bournemouth from Bristol City in May 2019 and has enjoyed just one season in the Premier League before finding himself back in the Championship with Bournemouth. Things could have been very different had Kelly not signed for Bournemouth, but he has a chance to show how much he has progressed against the club he grew up with.
Official AFCB Photo of Lloyd Kelly
Tonight's game is a match Kelly could have missed out on if he had been red carded in the previous game against Watford. That may make Lloyd even keener to play well against Bristol City, to show that the bad tackle last game was unlike him. We saw that Chris Mepham scored at Watford coming to the team's aid, but the defence will really want a shut out in this game and Bournemouth have a better chance of that with Lloyd Kelly in the starting line-up.
The departure of Charlie Daniels this week would have had more impact if Bournemouth didn't have the luxury of Lloyd Kelly on their books. While he now plays in central defence he can always play as a left-back if needed. But he has added a bit more energy to the left side of defence and his desire to get forward paid off last game when his shot was redirected by Mepham to Bournemouth's good fortune in added-time.
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No doubt, that last moment on the pitch made Lloyd Kelly feel pretty good about himself and the team and we need him to start playing at the best of his abilities if Bournemouth are going to add to their number of clean sheets. Bristol City offer one of the best attacks in the division and the Cherries have only managed two clean sheets in their seven games so far.
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Keeping Lloyd Kelly fit this season could be half the battle in keeping Bournemouth into the promotion place. We need to see Bournemouth start to defend better if they are to keep pace with Reading that opened up a seven-point gap at the top last night.
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