It’s Emirates FA Cup week as Bournemouth of the Premier League welcome Swansea City of the Championship to the Vitality Stadium.
These two sides have only ever met once in the FA Cup, back in November 2000 when The Cherries ran out 2-0 winners.
The head-to-head stats read heavily in the home sides favour with Swansea winless in their last 12 meetings (D4, L8).
The Cherries have had the better of The Swans already this season having knocked them out of the League Cup at the end of August with Ryan Christie’s added time effort breaking Swans hearts.
Both sides were dumped out at the third-round stage last season with Bournemouth suffering home defeat against Burnley whilst Swansea lost out to Bristol City having forced a home replay.
This season’s edition
Andoni Iraola’s side survived a first half scare against Queen’s Park Rangers in the third round of this season’s competition as they came back from two nil down to hit three second half goals to secure their spot in the fourth round.
Swansea were victorious against League 2 side Morecambe with Charlie Patino and Jerry Yates netting second half goals to send the Swans through. Jerry Yates has eight goal involvements in his last 9 FA Cup appearances (5 goals, 3 assists).
League form
The Cherries went on a fantastic seven game unbeaten run stretching from November 11th before losing 3-1 against Tottenham on New Year’s Eve. They have only played twice since that defeat, being the FA Cup victory against QPR and most recently a heavy defeat at home against Liverpool.
Luke Williams’s side have played four matches since the turn of the new year, getting off to a great start beating West Brom and Morecambe before a two all draw with struggling Birmingham City and a home defeat against highflyers Southampton.
Speaking with Sioned Dafydd on Tuesday, Luke Williams admitted his team “had a humiliated feeling at half-time” against Southampton but went on to say there were “hugely encouraging things from that game” from a much improved second half performance.
Live coverage of Thursday night’s game will begin from 7.20 with kick off at 7.45.
Follow the action on S4C, YouTube & S4C Clic (English Language Commentary available).
