Howe urges Cherries fight for Newcastle trip

Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe wants his side to produce the same performance that defeated Manchester United when they head to Newcastle on Saturday. The Cherries, competing in their fourth straight top-flight campaign, collected a first win in five Premier League matches last weekend as they recorded a hard-earned 1-0 victory over 20-time English champions United at a rain-soaked Vitality Stadium.
Joshua King’s strike on the stroke of half-time proved to be the difference between the two teams as the pressure mounted on Red Devils boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who will be hoping for three points when his side play host to Brighton on Sunday.
Bournemouth have now kept three successive clean sheets and they are sitting seventh in the standings heading into this weekend’s fixtures, leaving them just one point behind fifth-placed Arsenal, who are being hunted down by a number of clubs.
Howe’s men are winless in their last three meetings with Newcastle and the south-coast outfit lost this fixture last season, with Venezuelan striker Salomon Rondon scoring a brace for the Magpies before Jefferson Lerma pulled one back for the visitors.
Bournemouth are full of confidence ahead of their trip to Tyneside but Howe knows all these recent efforts will count for little if his side fail to deliver when they head to St James’ Park to tackle an opposition buoyed by their 3-2 win at West Ham United last time out. “Last week was great. We were really pleased with the performance, but the most important thing now is to hit that mark each week,” he said at his press conference. “Newcastle have some exceptional individuals. What we know is that we need to produce that Manchester United performance and if we do that, we can do well.”
Bournemouth will be without suspended midfielder Jefferson Lerma on Saturday after he collected a fifth yellow card in the game against United, while Dan Gosling could soon return to the squad following the troublesome hip problem he sustained in the summer.