Bournemouth team news: Baleba and Minteh available

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Albion face the Cherries on Monday night.

2026-01-16T21:00+00:00

Carlos Baleba is available to face the Cherries. 📸 by Paul Hazlewood.

Albion return to Premier League action on Monday when they play Bournemouth at the Amex, kick-off 8pm.

Team news

Yankuba Minteh is back in contention for Albion. 📸 by Paul Hazlewood.

Fabian Hurzeler confirmed that Carlos Baleba is available after returning from the Africa Cup of Nations, while he also provided an update on Yankuba Minteh and Mats Wieffer.

"Carlos is back, in good shape and in a good mood. He's ready to play.

"There's nothing new [injury wise]. Yankuba Minteh will be back. Mats Wieffer is still out. We had some players who were sick this week, but we still have three more days to recover and I hope they will be an option for the game."

Their last line-up

Up the Cherriessss 🍒 pic.twitter.com/NsurDPS1kl
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) January 7, 2026

The Cherries were last in Premier League action on Tuesday 7 January when they beat Tottenham 3-2 at the Vitality Stadium. Antoine Semenyo marked his final appearance for the club with a late winning goal, before completing his move to Manchester City.

Match stats

Albion have lost just one of their six Premier League home games against Bournemouth (W4 D1), winning the last four in a row since a 5-0 defeat in April 2019.

Following their 2-1 win at the Vitality Stadium in September, Bournemouth are looking to complete just their second Premier League double over Brighton after 2018-19.

Brighton have lost just two of their last 18 Premier League home games (W10 D6), with both defeats in that time coming against Aston Villa.

Bournemouth’s 3-2 win against Spurs last time out ended their 11-game winless run in the Premier League (D5 L6). They last won consecutive league games in August, a run of three with the last two coming against Spurs and Brighton respectively.

Only Aston Villa (12) have scored more goals from outside the box in the Premier League than Bournemouth this season, with the Cherries’ 11 already their most in a single top-flight campaign.

Brighton have avoided defeat in more different games when conceding first than any other side in the Premier League this season (7 – W3 D4). Meanwhile, no side has failed to win more different games when scoring first this term than Bournemouth (6 – D4 L2).

Albion have both scored and conceded in 41 of their 59 Premier League games under Fabian Hürzeler, a ratio of 69.5% - the highest of any manager to take charge of 50+ games in the competition’s history. Meanwhile, Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola ranks sixth-highest for this with 61.9% (60/97).

Brighton’s Kaoru Mitoma has scored more Premier League goals against Bournemouth than any other opponent (5). His next game will be his 100th in the competition and will make him the third Japanese player to reach the milestone after Maya Yoshida (154) and Shinji Okazaki (114).

Coming into this weekend’s games, only leading scorer Erling Haaland (133) has had more touches in the opposition box in the Premier League this season than Brighton’s Yankuba Minteh (124).

19-year-old Junior Kroupi has scored seven Premier League goals for Bournemouth this season. Only four non-British teenagers have netted more in a single campaign – Nicolas Anelka in 1998-99 (13), Robbie Keane in 1999-00 (12), Romelu Lukaku in 2012-13 (14) and Kelechi Iheanacho in 2015-16 (8).

Match officials