Bournemouth v Arsenal: FA Cup fourth round – live!

The teams are in the tunnel. Kick-off is about four minutes away.

Eddie Howe has a chat. Callum Wilson has had an injection in his knee, and Howe wanted to protect the players that aren’t 100% fit today”, hence him being on the bench rather than on the pitch:

It’s an important competition for us. It’s our next game. We won our last game, we want to try to build on that momentum and we’d love to be in the next round. I think it’s going to be really good game. We’ve done well here under lights in recent games, so let’s hope that continues.

Currently on the PA system at the Vitality Stadium: Live if Life by Opus. Classic!

The draw has been concluded, and the winners from this tie will be away to Portsmouth in the fifth round.

The fifth-round draw is about to happen. Follow it live with me here:

This just in from Bournemouth’s changing room. Brooklyn Genesini is on the bench, and in line to make his first senior appearance today. He’s an 18-year-old full-back.

Here are the teams again in totally plain text form:

Bournemouth: Travers, Smith, S Cook, Ake, Simpson, L Cook, Surman, Gosling, H Wilson, Fraser, Solanke. Subs: Ramsdale, Francis, C Wilson, Billing, Surridge, Dobre, Genesini.
Arsenal: Martinez, Bellerin, Mustafi, Sokratis, Saka, Guendouzi, Xhaka, Pepe, Willock, Martinelli, Nketiah. Subs: Leno, Ceballos, Lacazette, Ozil, Torreira, Maitland-Niles, Holding.
Referee: Martin Atkinson.

Hello world!

History in the making. That’s what we’re about to witness. For this, ladies and gentlemen, is the very first FA Cup tie between Bournemouth and Arsenal. The Cherries are looking to reach round five for the fifth time in their history (they’ve have reached the sixth round once, in 1957, and never got any further), Arsenal for the first time in three years (though they got at least that far in all but three of the preceding 17 years, in which time they reached seven finals and won six). There is, as you will have noticed, a massive disparity in Cup-flavoured achievement between these clubs, and for all their problems this season Arsenal remain eight places above their relegation-haunted opponents, but Bournemouth have home advantage and Ye Old Magic of the Cup to call upon, so anything is possible.

For Arsenal, Exciting Youngster Gabriel Martinelli is likely to start – “We have to bring him down,” said Mikel Arteta, which as it happens is precisely the thought that ran through David Luiz’s head when Tammy Abraham looked like scoring for Chelsea last week, which is why he’s suspended for this one. Bournemouth fielded a more than decent team in their third-round match against Luton, and we can thus expect similar this time even if Eddie Howe suggested he would rest the “players playing with injuries that ideally if we had a full squad to pick from wouldn’t be playing”, without suggesting who these players were.

Anyway, and to conclude, I’m hoping for a rollicking Cup tie. Welcome all!