Bournemouth v Sunderland: Black Cats make the long trip south still awaiting

Howe has similar memories of Sunderland captain John O’Shea, who had three months on loan at Bournemouth the season before Defoe and played alongside the Cherries boss at the heart of their defence.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to upset them on Saturday”, O’Shea said.

Charlie Daniels is in contention to return having recovered from a knee injury, but Bournemouth remain without summer signings Christian Atsu, Max Gradel and Tyrone Mings, the latter two being long-term absentees.

“With games against Congo and Rwanda, my last trip was a good one and I was glad to get some playing time”. They could set a platform for the rest our season.

Jermain Defoe has scored against 34 different teams in the Premier League and this will be the first time that he’s faced Bournemouth in the competition.

Bournemouth, it is fair to say, isn’t one of those things, but as an 18-year-old the Republic of Ireland centurion travelled south to begin what he calls a “crucial” stage on his road to becoming a five-time Barclays Premier League and one-time UEFA Champions League victor .

So if we don’t want to see the possibility of us dropping into a relegation spot, we need to break the duck by beating them. They really try to win games, which is how they finished the Championship season – scoring so many goals with that attacking threat.

“I played a good few games under Mel Machin, who was the manager at Bournemouth and Sean O’Driscoll was the coach, the assistant manager at Liverpool now”.

“Maybe if you allow people to get in your head then, as a team, you will struggle, but we have big characters and confident players so I’m sure that won’t affect us”.

Advocaat’s side showed some signs of recovery with draws against Swansea City and Aston Villa in their next two games, but they were dealt another blow last weekend, as Ryan Mason’s goal saw them slip to a 1-0 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur.

“We are a possession team – in most games we keep the ball more than the opposition but we didn’t do that”. The players always do.

Defoe played 31 times for the Cherries during a loan spell during the 2000/01 season, Defoe scored 19 times.

“If we had started with this squad in the beginning, then everything would have been much easier than now”.

The England global has not played since he dislocated a shoulder during the opening week of the season.