Eddie Howe: No focus to stop Arnautovic

Bournemouth manager, Eddie Howe highlighted that there will be no special plan to stop West Ham’s in-form striker Marco Arnautovic.

The Austrian started the season poorly, however since the appointment of David Moyes the former Stoke City and Inter Milan striker has been in fine form scoring, six goals and three assists in his last eight games; one of them coming against Bournemouth.

However, the Cherries boss was adamant that there has been no specific focus on stopping the Austrian international and that West Ham also have dangerous players around the pitch.

When asked if he had devised a plan to stop West Ham’s man in form Howe swiftly replied, “I don’t think you can ever focus on one player.”

“Because every Premier League team has quality in all positions, it is never about one individual.”

“It is always usually about the team feeding that player, so if you can do a good job on stopping certain things happening on the pitch then you have a good way of stopping the creative individual that they have,” said Howe.

In addition to this, the former Burnley manager praised Arnautovic saying “he is a very good player, he did very well against us here and he has scored a number of key goals lately, so we know about his qualities.”

Howe’s Bournemouth side suffered a humiliating FA Cup third round exit after losing 3-0 to League One leader’s Wigan Athletic at the DW Stadium.

He made eight changes against the Latics from the team that beat Arsenal last Saturday and chose to leave last week’s goalscorer Jordan Ibe on the bench.

However, Howe emphasised that the former Liverpool man was not disappointed to start on the bench against the Latics.

“I think Jordan understands that we played on a Wednesday night. It was a difficult journey to Wigan with the winds and it was a late night.”

“We had West Ham in mind and we wanted to keep as many players as we could fresh for this game” stated Howe.

23 goals have been scored in the last five fixtures between the Cherries and the Hammers, so if history suggests anything, it is that this match should be a competitive affair with lots of goals.

The match at the London Stadium will kick off at 3 pm on Saturday Afternoon.