Bournemouth's absence from the FA Cup fourth round will have allowed them a rare opportunity to fully recharge the batteries between games.
Aside from the standard international breaks in September, October and November when half the squad will have flown off around the world to represent their countries, the 10 clear days between their win at Everton on Tuesday, 10 February and the upcoming trip to West Ham this Saturday, 21 February, has been Bournemouth's longest gap between fixtures so far in 2025-26.
That win at Hill Dickinson Stadium is also the Cherries' final midweek away trip of the season, with their only remaining midweek game at home to Brentford on 3 March forming part of a Saturday-Tuesday home double against Sunderland and the Bees that immediately precedes another 10-day gap during which the FA Cup fifth round will be contested.
Head coach Andoni Iraola's high-energy, hard-running playing style demands a lot of his players physically, and as fan writer Sam Davis pointed out on these pages earlier this week, playing fewer games than some of their mid-table rivals in the final three months of the season could be to Bournemouth's advantage in terms of player workload.
For the travelling fans, particularly those hardy souls who braved the rain at Everton last week, the fixture schedule for the last half-dozen away games feels a little kinder towards the end of the campaign.
Cherries followers, by the nature of geography, will rack up more miles on the motorways and the rail network than those of any other Premier League team this season.
However, of their last six away matches, Newcastle and Burnley are the only two of the eight northernmost grounds yet to be visited by Iraola's side, with three of their last six away games in London before a final-day journey to Nottingham Forest – who have had more managers than home league wins in 2025-26.