Luton Town vs Bournemouth Odds
| Luton Town Odds | +300 |
| Bournemouth Odds | -118 |
| Draw | +275 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -175o /+137u |
Bournemouth look to continue their good form when they travel to take on Luton Town.
Luton Town were beaten 2-0 by Arsenal in the midweek and are now three points from safety after Nottingham Forest's 3-1 win over Fulham. The Hatters are going through a difficult part of their schedule and are also dealing with a lot of injuries, which has led to them going winless over their past 11 matches. They blew a three-goal lead in their previous meeting with Bournemouth and really need a result here at home.
Bournemouth, on the other hand, are in amazing form, have won four of their past five matches and now have an outside shot of finishing inside the top 10. The Cherries have taken care of business against teams in the bottom half of the table and have also had a resurgence over the second half of the season with Andoni Iraola getting his tactics right.
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Luton Town
Luton Town have gone through all sorts of issues and have really struggled out of possession because Rob Edwards hasn't found something that works. Against Arsenal on Wednesday, he played a passive low block for a majority of the match. His team did a decent job, but playing that deep hurt their ability to counter attack quickly, so they created next to nothing.
In previous matches, Luton had been more aggressive out of possession, man marking all over the pitch and trying to cause a lot of high turnovers. That led to was some crazy matches, like the last one they played against Bournemouth. However, Luton Town is in a bad spot due to injuries and is currently without Sambi Lokonga and Marvelous Nakamba, two of their three main defensive holding midfielders. So, even if Luton decide to sit deep in some type of 5-4-1 or 5-3-2 shape, it's going to be very hard to keep Bournemouth out of the middle of the pitch.
With all of their out-of-possession issues, Luton Town have been dangerous on the break and on set pieces. In the previous meeting with Bournemouth, they scored all three of their goals in transition off of counter attacks. Luton creates most of their chances via crosses and scored twice against Bournemouth off of them because Bournemouth has been very average at defending them this season.
Bournemouth
Bournemouth are really starting to become a great team under Iraola. Two things have allowed them to have this incredible ascension after a poor start to the season.
First, their hybrid high press has been incredibly effective. Bournemouth put a lot pressure on teams that want to build out of the back, but also make it really difficult for teams like Luton Town to complete long balls over the top given how much they push up their back four to aid in the press. Because of this, Bournemouth’s PPDA since the beginning of December is 8.3, the third-best mark in the Premier League behind only Liverpool and Tottenham.
Additionally, when they regain the ball high up the pitch, they’ve been incredibly effective at scoring off their easy transition opportunities. They’ve scored seven goals off of forced high turnovers, the third-most in the league.
It also helps that they have a great striker in Dominic Solanke. He's Bournemouth's most important player right now as he's scored 16 of their 43 goals and has a 0.57 xG per 90 minute scoring rate this season.
However, although Bournemouth have been really good with their hybrid press, when teams are able to beat the first line of the pressure and attack them quickly, they have struggled. For the season, Bournemouth is 15th in final third to box entry conversion rate, which is exactly how Luton scored all three goals in the previous meeting.
Luton Town vs Bournemouth
Prediction
Even though the previous meeting ended 4-3, Bournemouth was the better side at the end of the match. The Cherries ended up taking 24 shots, creating 2.3 expected goals and had 37 touches in Luton Town's penalty area.
The problem that Luton Town ran into was when they went ahead three goals was that they stopped playing aggressively out of possession and sat in a passive low block, which gave Bournemouth time and space on the ball. When Luton Town falls behind, they then have to play super aggressively, which will leave space for Bournemouth to destroy them in transition.
I have 4.16 goals projected for this match, so I like the value on Over 3.5 Goals at +126.
Pick: Over 3.5 Goals (+126 via FanDuel)
