AFC Bournemouth (Away) 05.12.2024

A straight ball out of our defence to Zabhiarnyi saw Dominic quickly onto him and pinching the ball off him, ran into the Bournemouth box before letting go a shot that was blocked for a corner. From it, the home side raced forward and Archie Gray got back to time a fine tackle to rob Kluivert, but they did have a chance in the 16th minute when a ricochet from a clearance dropped for Evanilson in the six yard box and Forster saved at point-blank range. From it, Huijsen came in around the back post to head the corner in across Forster.  It was poor marking as nobody tracked his run and is the sort of goal we need to cut out.

Tottenham won a corner straight away, but Solanke got across his man at the near post, although he couldn’t glance it on target and then Kulusevski tried a shot inside the box and couldn’t get the required curl on it to be on target. Kluivert got away on their right again and Bissouma pulled him back and suffered the same fate as Ben did earlier. Too often Tottenham’s defensive clearances were falling to Bournemouth players with no challenge on them, meaning the ball kept coming back.  When Christie flew into a tackle and caught Maddison under the knee, the referee failed to notice it with the infringement happening right in front of him. He gave a free-kick, but it was as much a yellow card as the two Spurs ones. We were unable to put a string of passes together and the home side were finding it easy to get through our midfield, but with similar tackles, the ref was giving different decisions, making it frustrating to watch, especially when Bournemouth players were going down so easily.

It looked like being another match where we weren’t able to get our game together.  When our crosses weren’t over-hit, the player winning the header took it away from players behind them. Again, inconsistency from the referee allowed Evanilson to get away with a booking when he pulled Davies back and then the striker brought Davies down off the ball, but that wasn’t even a free-kick. A couple of minutes before half-time, Kerkes over-lapped on the left and his cross was headed won by Tavernier, but Fraser got a hand down to it to keep it out.

Although Bournemouth deserved to be ahead on the balance of the attacking play, it had been a scrappy game, with moved breaking down as the ref allowed contact to go unpunished and our own poor passing didn’t make the most of the majority of possession we had.  Too many poor touches were causing Tottenham’s moves to fall down and the referee allowing continual instances of Bournemouth fans throwing the ball onto the pitch when it had gone into the crowd, thus breaking up play. For all the worries about Fraser Forster’s footwork, he showed some pretty fancy skills in taking it away from a Bournemouth player closing him down and then finding Archie Gray with a pass out to the right. When Spurs did make a few passes, the ball was worked across the pitch for Udogie to get to the line, as he had done here before, but this time it was blocked for a corner. Maddison swung it in and it hit the bar after Arrizabalaga got a touch on it, but Kluivert got played up the pitch and he got away from Udogie, choosing to shoot instead of squaring it to Evanilson, producing a very good stop at close range by Forster. As the game opened up a bit, Gray had a shot from outside the box that went into the keeper’s arms.

As usual here, the ball boys were rubbish. Either not bothering to get the ball or letting it bounce back onto the pitch. Either way it was slowing the game down.  Kulusevski sped a cross to the far post from a short right-wing corner, but it was just too high for Ben Davies, as Ange brought on Son for Sarr. He made an immediate impact, following in on Arrizabalaga’s fumble to Solanke’s shot and putting it in the net, but he had gone too soon with the initial shot and was offside.  The game was going end-to-end with Evanilson shooting low from just inside the area with Forster getting down behind it well and then Spurs moved to the other end, with Son playing a reverse pass to Maddison, who had gone beyond him into the box, but it was slightly behind him. James managed to turn on it and curled it just wide of the far post, but Ben Davies had gone down and had to be replaced by Pedro Porro.

To give the referee credit, he did spot that Arrizabalaga was spending too much time taking a goal-kick after the substitution and booked him … and with only 62 minutes gone in the match.  Usually refs wait until the 89th minute to do that !  Huijsen then sliced Porro’s low ball to the near post and from the corner, it was punched out, but Pedro ran onto it to hit a low half-volley that was well blocked by the keeper.

Bournemouth played the ball forward and as Evanilson made a run to the left, it created space for Christie to shoot low against the outside of Fraser’s right-hand post. Adams finally got booked when he pulled down Solanke at the near post at a Bournemouth corner. So, when Adams did it at the next corner, what do you think happened ? That’s right. Absolutely nothing !  We managed to shoot ourself in the foot when Bournemouth when playing the ball out, with Kulusevski having it poked off his toe and when the ball went forward, Evanilson put it in after Forster saved a shot and the ball was nudged on to the striker, but he was offside. Semenyo and Tavernier both had shots but fired wide either side of the disallowed goal, as did Outtara. With just over 10 minutes left Maddison and Bissouma made way for Bergvall and Werner, but it was the Cherries who had a good chance as Semenyo pulled the ball back for Tavernier, but he failed to control his shot and it flew over the goal when he should have scored.  The same went for Outtara who had his first shot blocked and sent his second way over, before Werner got in the box, but couldn’t wrap his foot around the ball enough to get his shot on goal.

Substitute Unal was handed a chance when we failed to play the ball out, but Forster stood tall and blocked it with his body. Spurs players were getting caught on the ball, being too slow to move it on, or failed to link up with each other through a lack of communication. It was a poor performance, slightly better in the second half, but nowhere good enough. Beaten to the ball too often, it allowed Bournemouth to ensure that there was little threat to their goal.  A shot from Adams hit Bergvall and it was checked for handball, but he had his arms tight to his chest.  And that was it apart from some unnecessary abusive shouting at Postecoglou when he came over to the fans.   

It said something about our performance that it was the most shots on goal Bournemouth had had all season, so disorganised were we throughout the match. I dread to think what will happen on Sunday against Chelsea.

Stanford Rivers

• Ben Davies plays his 300th Premier League career match.
• Dean Huijsen became Bournemouth’s youngest PL goal-scorer.