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1 day ago
5
In the meeting of lower middle-class upstarts both challenging the elites, Bournemouth dished out a footballing lesson to Nottingham Forest. Just like Manchester City and Arsenal, just like Newcastle a week previously, Forest were picked apart, their previously imperious defence ripped apart by warp-speed attacking.
Bournemouth fans wanted six. Theirs is the team of the moment. If Andoni Iraola and Nuno Espirito Santo share an enigmatic quality, it was the Basque, the friendly ideologue with a sense of perspective, who prevailed over the Portuguese, whose Zen-like calm masks hard-bitten sensibilities.
Bournemouth fans sang of a European tour while Forest’s Champions League dream - let alone any distant reverie for a Leicester 2016-style title - took a heavy jolt. Both teams had negotiated the Christmas glut to be placed within reaching distance of successes beyond the wildest dreams of clubs that once languished in the Football League. How high can Bournemouth go? Their rise continues with just 12 fit senior players. After that demolition job on Newcastle, and a full week’s rest, they were unchanged, and just as devastating.
Justin Kluivert’s opener saw’s Nuno best-laid plans malfunctioning. Last week’s hat-trick hero sped onwards as Forest defenders ran back in numbers, Ola Aina rubbernecking as he did so, but as no challenge came in on the Dutchman, he chose to strike. Matz Sels found himself unsighted by retreating defenders.
Ryan Yates’ return for Forest as their midfield aggressor had appeared an attempt to throw Bournemouth’s high press back on themselves, and to defend in numbers so that the counter-presses and counterattacks of their opponents would run into traffic.
Necessity had thrown Lewis Cook in as an emergency right-back, and an early yellow card for baulking a motoring Anthony Elanga, a rare Forest positive, did not bode well but Bournemouth continued on the front foot. That is what their manager asks of a squad whose clever construction is beyond the big boys. Kluivert was unwanted at Roma but now, at what point does Patrick Kluivert, one of the finest players of the 1990s, become known merely as Justin’s dad? Another Roma graduate - how did they or Juventus let such obvious talent leave? - Dean Huijsen made one of those languid, gliding forward runs that remind of a Virgil van Dijk or Laurent Blanc.
Forest’s away support - as fervent as they come in the Premier League, and living the dream this season - were quietened. Sels came to their rescue again when making a low save from Antoine Semenyo as Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic, previously perhaps the best centre-back pairing of the English season, were left bewildered.
For a spell, Yates and Jota Silva, midfield provocateurs, managed to slow Bournemouth’s progress, and attract some choice Dorset discourse from the home support for some dark arts. Kepa Arrizabalaga’s aptitude under the high ball was also tested on a couple of occasions but Forest entered the break fortunate to be just a single goal behind. If there has been a complaint about the Iraola machine, it is the amount of chances missed; the injury crisis has robbed him of his strikers. Not that anyone would notice in recent weeks.
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Nuno’s half-time solution was to replace Yates with Nico Dominguez, Elliot Anderson asked to drive forward alongside him. Forest’s muscle brought territorial gains but little coherence. Crucially, it also left space. Bournemouth showed how speedy yet inventive attacking is done with their second. Kluivert cut inside and drifted the ball to the back-post where Dango Ouatarra’s hang-time allowed him the inches to nod back across Sels.
VAR next intervened after Kluivert had ridden out a wave of attacks and scored, only for Ouatarra, his supplier, to have been offside. By now, Forest were reeling, shapeless, Nuno pacing, zen deserting him as he watched in visible annoyance. Ouattara soon made up for his previous lack of positioning when springing the offside trap, sent away by Tyler Adams, furthering the embarrassment of Murillo and Milenkovic by blazing through to score. His third came as Marcus Tavernier’s shot was deflected by the now hapless Sels into his path. Semenyoadded a fifth to complete a statement win from a club and manager continuing their season of shock awe.
