 Hello and welcome to today's preview show. I'm joined by BBC Radio Solent's Chris Tempel and here's what's coming up. We'll be looking back at today's game against Brighton and we will canvass the thoughts of manager Eddie Howell ahead of the trip to the London Stadium. Let's start with today's game, the 2-0 defeat to Brighton. Chris, a disappointing end to the decade. Certainly was. You know, an early goal like that is a real sucker blow. Particularly, Willow made a very good point in our BBC Radio Solent commentary that when you're feeling tired and you've turned around quickly from a game a couple of days ago, the first goal is so important. If it goes against you, your legs can start to feel that a little bit heavier. And I thought Bournemouth took 20-25 minutes to get going really today. They had chances towards the end of the half, a couple of good counterattacks, a couple of block shots, a couple of deflections and started to get into their groove and probably half time came at a bad time really for them. And then obviously the second goal, when that gets chalked off, Dan Burns' effort chalked off a VAR marginal call but had to be the right call given the rules as they are. You think that might then be a psychological boost back into the game, but it didn't prove to be that way. Second half, little bits and bobs, but nothing really like the sort of cohesive attacking unit we've seen or we saw here last season anyway. And it actually never really felt like they were going to get back in the game to me. One positive was the return of junior Stanislaus, though. Great to see him back. He probably more than anybody else has had hardly any luck with injuries. He's had things where he's come back and then gone down again quite quickly and even in his recovery from this one, he had another problem, didn't he? And so that delay has come back. Great to see him back out there for an hour. You know, I totally took him a bit of time to get up to the pace of Premier League football again. Had a couple of nice moments and he'll grow from that. It's great to have another body available and another option. And I think when you've got two games in three days, you have to have as many options to rotate positions as you can. Jefferson Lerner obviously had a little bit of a problem today, which is why he wasn't out there. And I think he was obviously a big miss with his play. But yeah, I think, you know, on a day of not that many positives, I would say junior's return was obviously one, as you say. I mean, the manager really doesn't need a lucky charm at the moment because he's even said himself that this is the worst injury crisis he's known since he's been here. Yeah. And someone like, I mean, Jack Stacey's only just come into the team and you see him limping off with 10 minutes to go as well, where he, bless him, he tried to battle on. You know, obviously he wouldn't want to come off as he had to. And in the end, you know, it's almost just like waving the white flag and saying, just get off because we can't have anything else going severely wrong with him. And I think, you know, people talk about our players should be able to play two games in three days. Well, Jack Stacey's a fit young man and has only just come into the Premier League. I think there we just saw two, you know, physical games in three days is probably what's caused his problem. I mean, it was a physically demanding game against Arsenal the other day. He covered so much ground. And I think, literally, your body these days, they're so finely tuned, put under such demands, we probably just saw the result of that. So let's hope fingers crossed that that is only a sort of a short term strain and that he's back available for the West Ham game, particularly with Simon Francis, obviously currently sidelined as well. The right back, the right back supplies drying up as well as the left backs. This is the fifth season in the Premier League, Christian. We've seen sticky patches in the other four seasons, haven't we? And they've always come through. They have. Someone made a point to me earlier on that one thing Bournemouth haven't really done is had to face sort of the second half of the season right in a battle. Often they've sort of faded away towards the end of the season. It starts to have people peering over their shoulder. But actually, they haven't had to really battle their way out of trouble in the second half of the season. So that's the concern, I think, is if the sort of negative feelings sees them end up quite easily being in the bottom three by the time we're reading it, by the time this is being aired. So it's one of those situations now where things need to turn around before they end up in trouble and having to fight their way out of it rather than having that little bit of a buffer that they have usually had. So I think that, of course, that's compounded by the injury situation, not just in trouble, but when you're looking for a spark or a couple of people to swap in and out of the team, they haven't got that many options. So the concern is that they haven't found themselves in a battle and having to really fight their way out of it. And obviously this performance today came on the back of an encouraging performance against Arsenal where we took the lead, but we eventually pegged back in the second half. Yeah, and I think that game, you know, with sort of what you say, that the fuller strength team out that day certainly felt like a mojo was back and there was a bit more of the attack in Swagger. It was probably a bit more of a sort of old school basket ball game that we've spoken about before where it was a bit more end to end and probably a little bit too open at times. And I think, you know, when the Lerner and Billing partnership we've spoken about, which is solidifies the midfield and maybe they sacrifice a little bit going forward because of that. Obviously, the last two games have only played one of those two players and it's sort of, you know, it's been a bit more open and they've, I mean, now and more around the show for Brighton. So, yeah, that's that's, I guess, a concern. But at the same time, the Swagger is there if they can get all those players. I mean, Ryan Fraser, Colin Wilson came on late against Brighton with, you know, having to make an impact later on. I'm sure it's probably easier for them playing from the start to make an impact. With the encouraging signs of the Arsenal game, that is what we can take into the new decade. And certainly these next five fixtures are absolutely crucial. Yeah. I mean, look at the results recently, that, you know, the run going back to the Man United win, the Chelsea win, the Arsenal point. Of course, everyone always says Bournemouth often do turn up in those big games, particularly at home. But actually, it's some of the, you know, the more grind games, if you like, the ones away from home. Like, I mean, West Ham, the good thing about the West Ham game is they'll be under pressure because they're at home. They've had a bad home record. They haven't won a home since September. And ironically, they beat Man United at home as well. Yeah, certainly it would need to be more of an Arsenal performance than the one we've got here against Brighton. Let's turn our thoughts to the trip to London Stadium on New Year's Day. And let's get the opinion of manager Eddie Howe ahead of the visit to London Stadium. Yeah, no games come thick and fast. We knew that at this time of year. And yeah, we go to West Ham, which is going to be a difficult game for us. Away from home again. So we're going to have to regroup, make sure the bodies are OK and go again. Just give us a word on their season so far. How you think they've done? Yeah, I think West Ham have done OK. I think it's a really competitive league this year. There's a lot of very good teams in it. So we look forward. We had a good battle against them in the first game this season. It was a really tight draw. Could have gone either way. So we've got to make sure that we certainly played better than we did in the second half here. Every season in the Premier League, you've had a sticky patch like this and always come out the other side. Obviously, that's what you're hoping to do this time round. Yeah, it is. I think probably the difference is this time that we stretch probably more than we've ever been. And I thought we were stretched last year at this time in terms of numbers fitting available to us. But this is probably the worst I've ever known. And that's going to be the biggest challenge. It's one that we can overcome. But we're certainly going to need to be very strong and resilient in this moment. On that same theme, is there any positive team used ahead of the visit to the London Stadium? It's difficult to give you that right this second, just counting the cost of today's game. So we see where we are after this one. So there's the thoughts of manager Eddie Howe ahead of the New Year's Day trip to the London Stadium to face West Ham. Chris, West Ham, they're certainly in a sticky situation as well. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they start the season pretty well. They've got a few wins on the board early on. But yeah, they've lost their way completely for some reason. Again, the pressure, they've never quite settled at the London Stadium, that's been a well-known fact that it hasn't really been a home fortress for them. You know, it's not a stadium you can generate a lot of atmosphere in. Of course, Bournemouth have good memories of the game there last season. Callum Wilson's sort of solo goal, which was one of the standout moments of last season very early on, first away game, of course, of last season as well. So, and of course, Callum will have good memories because his last goal was against West Ham as well. So way back in September. And I think, you know, just before going on to West Ham more generally, one of the telling stats of Bournemouth's recent, I guess, misfiring troubles is that strikers have contributed two goals in the last 14 games, going back to Callum's goal against West Ham last time round. Only Joshua King against Man United. That's the only goal strikers have contributed. So I think it's certainly time for Callum to, you know, we heard from him this week and, you know, he said he does feel like he's getting chances and he's, maybe he's been a little bit off it, but he feels like he's in a good place now. So, you know, certainly the team needs Callum contributing, not just the goals, but back to the Callum Wilson that got him in the England picture. But yeah, London Stadium, you know, changed place to watch football. The media position for us, our radio commentary and for you guys to watch from is miles away from the pitch. So yeah, all in all, off the back of this, it needs to be a pretty good performance, that's for sure. I mean, is it too early to say it's another six-pointer, another must win game? I mean, you could argue today was a must win game and we didn't win, but you know, we're talking, we've got 18, 19, 18 games left. Yeah, I mean, Steve Cook didn't label this as a must win game against Brighton. And I sort of, I'm of the opinion that it's very early for must win games, but a lovely to win, I think I called it. But I mean, we're getting to the stage now, whereas we referred to earlier on, you don't want to find yourself too much in a battle that you're trying to get out of. It's always better to be battling above it and to say, let's not get dragged into that than being it and say, okay, we've got to get ourselves out of it. So yeah, I think there's no doubt with how tight the bottom half of the table is. And also with some of the teams below starting to pick up a bit of form as well, you know, Watford have suddenly found a couple of results. Norwich are a bit in and out, could easily get a couple of results, Villa the same, Southampton obviously have sailed past Bournemouth as well. And all those teams are coming up. So that's why this run is so important, because you can, as we've seen, get on a losing run and find it very hard to snap out of. So yeah, this is a huge period coming up to the end of February, absolutely. I think, you know, West Ham at the start of the season, they spent a bit of money, didn't they? They brought in the likes of Haller and they've got the likes of Antonio have always been great players and even Snodgrass, who feels like he's been around for years. You know, other players, you know, even Chicharito and one or two others, you know, good players. Obviously Declan Rice has had a great emergence as well. West Ham certainly I think would have seen themselves challenging for the top eight rather than the bottom three or four as they are. So, but again, look at the leader table this year, Sheffield United. I mean, Wolves are absolutely flying at the moment. So there's so much competition for those places and it is a case of sometimes, you know, falling on the wrong or the right side of a very even, even contest. So for West Ham, they're on a bad trot. I think it's two wins in 13. You know, Bournemouth on, almost equally as bad a shot, to be honest with you. So yeah, it's a game that the football purists might not be looking forward to, but certainly if Bournemouth can turn up massive pitch at London Stadium, that's what I would say. Huge, huge playing area, which hopefully if Bournemouth players can recover from this Christmas week and be fit and firing, they could exploit. Disappointing end today to what's been an absolutely momentous decade, Chris. You and I have lived, breathed and eaten it all. Just give a short, your thoughts on it. Certainly most of it, that's for sure. Yeah, of course it has been. I mean, even when you fit back to the start of this year, let alone the decade, I mean, it beating Chelsea Fournil at home. That was this year. It feels like an absolute eternity go, doesn't it? But when we go back to, you know, the start of the year, getting promoted against Burton, Eddie obviously leaving and coming back. I mean, that even feels like that was the last decade. That was this decade. Yeah, so much has happened. Obviously then the near missing the playoffs, the promotion from the championship, you know, everyone will remember that bolt on Monday night, you know, as if it was yesterday. And then, you know, since then, the role of the Coaster of Ride that is the Premier League for five years, which, you know, fingers crossed will continue into the next decade, or at least half of this year, and fingers crossed beyond that. But yeah, the one thing is, as you know, from covering this club for a lot longer than I have, you never quite know what's around the corner, do you? So there we are, roll on 2020. And if you can't make the visit to London Stadium on New Year's Day, don't forget to tune into BBC Radio Solent and hear the thoughts of Chris and Willow. Thank you very much for joining us on the preview show.