Liverpool host Bournemouth in each side's second Premier League fixture of the season. There's not a long history between the two, but Football FanCast has everything you need to know about their previous meetings.
Both sides come into the clash after opening their Premier League accounts with draws, with Bournemouth snatching a late equaliser against Conference League winners West Ham United, before Liverpool and Chelsea also played out a 1-1 stalemate last Sunday.
Liverpool vs Bournemouth: Who has the better head-to-head record?
Liverpool and Bournemouth have met in 19 competitive games throughout their history, with the vast majority happening since 2013. It's of no great surprise, then, that the Reds utterly dominate this one.
They've won 14 of the 19, with Bournemouth managing only two wins. That still only leaves three draws – a Liverpool win is almost a certainty this weekend.
Liverpool wins: 14 Draws: 3 Bournemouth wins: 2 Liverpool vs Bournemouth: Who has the better record at Anfield?
You can probably guess this one. Nine of the 19 fixtures have taken place at Anfield, with Liverpool winning eight of them. Bournemouth have never won at the ground, either.
In fact, they've got just one draw. That came as the result of a 2-2 stalemate back in early 2017 – Josh King scored with just three minutes left to record what is actually quite a historic result.
Liverpool wins: 8 Draws: 1 Bournemouth wins: 0 Liverpool vs Bournemouth: Who has the better record at the Vitality Stadium?
Bournemouth have fared a little better at home. They've hosted Liverpool on 10 occasions, winning twice and drawing twice.
The Reds still boast the superior record with six wins, but they've only managed to win in just over half of the games. It's a much more difficult fixture to predict and one where Liverpool are quite prone to slipping up – as they did last season.
Bournemouth wins: 2 Draws: 2 Liverpool wins: 6 Liverpool vs Bournemouth: Which team has the most goals?
Liverpool average a lot of goals in this one – in fact, they average over three goals against Bournemouth at Anfield. In total, the Reds have scored 51 times in 19 games, which is a phenomenal record, even when taking into account the nine they notched last term.
You'd imagine that they don't boast a better one against many other sides.
Bournemouth, in contrast, struggle to score in this fixture. They've managed only 13 strikes in 19 games, averaging under a goal per game both home and away.
Liverpool vs Bournemouth: What is their record in the Premier League?
Of course, the majority of the clashes in this fixture have taken place in the Premier League after Bournemouth earned their first spell in the top flight back in 2015. The two teams have since played on 12 occasions, with Liverpool winning nine of them.
Bournemouth have picked up two points in that spell, with just one draw occurring in the Premier League. We'll almost certainly get a winner in this one, it seems.
Liverpool vs Bournemouth: Who is Liverpool's top scorer in this fixture?
Given the bulk of fixtures have been since 2015, it's of absolutely no shock that Mohamed Salah is Liverpool's top scorer when the teams meet. He's scored eight times against Bournemouth, including a hat-trick in a 4-0 win back in December 2018.
Perhaps strangest of all is that Salah didn't score in the 9-0 thrashing last season, despite featuring in the game. You can almost always count on him finding the net against the Cherries, though, and no one – on either side – really comes close to his record.
Liverpool vs Bournemouth: Who is Bournemouth's top scorer in this fixture?
Two players top the charts for the Cherries against Liverpool. The first is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Callum Wilson.
He bagged two while at Bournemouth, first from the spot in their 4-3 win at home in 2016 and then the consolation in a 2-1 defeat at Anfield in the 2019/20 campaign.
Matching him is Josh King. King's first was also a consolation – a 90th-minute strike in a 2-1 defeat at home during the Cherries' first Premier League campaign – but his second was a vital late equaliser that gave Bournemouth their only point at Anfield to date.
Liverpool vs Bournemouth: What is Liverpool's record win?
Liverpool have a couple of 4-0 wins in this one that would be their record win in most fixtures. But then they went and won 9-0 at Anfield last season.
That, of course, is their record win and it's highly unlikely they ever top it in this fixture. Luis Díaz kicked off proceedings, with Harvey Elliott, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Roberto Firmino and Virgil van Dijk making it 5-0 before half-time.
A Chris Mepham own goal made things worse after the break before Firmino added his second and Fabio Carvalho picked up an eighth. Diaz then finished off the rout he started.
Liverpool vs Bournemouth: What is Bournemouth's record win?
No 9-0s for Bournemouth, you won't be surprised to learn. In fact, they've never beaten Liverpool by more than a single goal in this fixture.
That isn't to say that their record win isn't special, though. It was a crazy game, with the Reds racing into a 2-0 lead after 22 minutes through Sadio Mané and Divock Origi. Callum Wilson pulled one back after half-time before Emre Can then restored the two-goal lead.
With 15 minutes remaining, though, Ryan Fraser reduced that lead and Steve Cook found an equaliser two minutes later. That set the stage for Nathan Aké to provide a dramatic winner as the game entered stoppage-time.
4-3 it finished in a game Bournemouth fans won't forget anytime soon.
Liverpool vs Bournemouth: What happened last season?
Last season's games between these two were pretty surreal. They met on matchday four, with the Reds hosting the Cherries after starting the season in stuttering style. No one predicted what was to come – a 9-0 thrashing and Liverpool's record Premier League win.
Absolutely everything went right for them that day, with Bournemouth boss Scott Parker leaving the club immediately afterwards (which was actually down to transfers, rather than this result).
What's perhaps even stranger than that win was the return fixture. Despite losing 9-0 at Anfield, Bournemouth beat Liverpool at home in a game where Mohamed Salah missed a penalty.
It was quite the turnaround, and even after such an embarrassment at Anfield, the two clubs split their points evenly last term.
Liverpool vs Bournemouth: What are the recent results?
Liverpool and Bournemouth may have split the points last season, but it hasn't always gone that way.
In fact, prior to that record victory, Liverpool had won the six previous fixtures, conceding just once in the process. That came in the last game before Bournemouth's relegation – a 2-1 win at Anfield. The games before that followed a pattern, though.
Liverpool had won the five previous fixtures on an aggregate of 17 to nil thanks to a series of back-to-back 3-0 and 4-0 triumphs.
Bournemouth's recent win ended a terrible run, then – and one they'll hope generates a bit of momentum.
How did Liverpool do last season?
Last season was a strange one for Liverpool. They started slowly despite being early title favourites – and then continued to get even slower. It was entirely at odds with the Reds under Jurgen Klopp.
They just didn't look like the side we'd come to know and appeared to require big changes in 2023. The 9-0 win over Bournemouth was a sign that they still had something, but it proved to be a complete anomaly.
A late resurgence did put them back in with a chance of a top-four finish, only for them to slip slightly at the end. They'll now play Europa League football as they attempt to get back on track.
Last weekend's draw at Chelsea provides more questions than answers.
How did Bournemouth do last season?
Everyone feared for Bournemouth after the 9-0 thrashing, especially after Scott Parker left the club. It was very difficult to see how things could turn around after that and relegation felt a little inevitable.
But the Cherries gradually moved up the table and were quite comfortable in the end. They finished five points above the relegation zone despite losing their last four fixtures.
A 15th-placed finish was always something they'd have loved at the start of the season and it's exactly what they got. Something to build on in 2023/24 under new boss Andoni Iraola.
Their draw with West Ham on the opening day will also hand the supporters cause for optimism ahead of the months to come.
When is Liverpool vs Bournemouth?
Liverpool host Bournemouth on Saturday 19th August at 3pm UK time. It'll be the 20th meeting between the two teams as each play their second Premier League fixture of the season.
The Reds will feel early wins are an absolute must if they're to quickly forget about last season. That campaign wasn't quite a nightmare in the end, but it was incredibly far from their initial expectations.
With a new midfield and some new tactical ideas, Jurgen Klopp and co will hope things can get back on track this time around.
Bournemouth may not expect to get anything out of this one, of course. They've never won at Anfield and doing so here would be an incredible shock. Still, they'll go into it knowing the pressure is all on Liverpool – and that's something they used to their advantage last season.
The Cherries won the most recent clash between the two, after all. A repeat would be a historic result and a sign that everyone must take Bournemouth seriously this year.
An interesting Premier League fixture, then. A Liverpool win would be considered routine for everyone involved and is the expected result, while anything else would raise plenty of eyebrows up and down the table.
