Bournemouth v Bolton: Championship – as it happened!
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http://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2015/apr/27/bournemouth-v-bolton-championship-live Version 0 of 1. 9.46pm BST21:46 Well that was another display of thrilling attacking excellence from the Cherries. It’s been a thrill. I’m off to talk about them on Australian radio, as you do. Bye! 9.44pm BST21:44 So presumably Sky’s two live games on Saturday will concentrate on the top two – Charlton v Bournemouth, and Watford v Sheffield Wednesday – though there’s also potential play-off drama, and potential relegation drama. 9.43pm BST21:43 One more game to go... http://t.co/vJmQUft09p #afcb pic.twitter.com/A3oTKc7kGw The Cherries with the smallest PL ground since the Tangerines. Oranges are not the only fruit. 9.41pm BST21:41 So Bournemouth are three points ahead of Middlesbrough, their goal difference is superior by 19, and they’ve scored 27 more goals. So unless they lose 10-0 at Charlton, and Boro capitalise by thrashing Brighton 10-0, they’re up. Updated at 9.57pm BST 9.39pm BST21:39 Bournemouth are promoted to the Premier League (barring last-day lunacy)! The pitch is emphatically invaded. I’ve only been involved in one pitch invasion, and thoroughly wonderful it was too. Special moments. 9.37pm BST21:37 Final whistle: Bournemouth 3-0 Bolton 90+3 mins: With 10 seconds of stoppage time remaining the referee decides that he’s quite close to the tunnel, and there’s about to be a pitch invasion, and so blows his whistle and starts sprinting. 9.37pm BST21:37 90+2 mins: Lovely work from Arter, who shimmies through midfield and roars towards the box, plays in Wilson, who plays an accidental one-two with a defender before shooting across goal, where it sounded like it clipped woodwork on its way wide. 9.34pm BST21:34 90+1 mins: Into stoppage time, of which there will be three minutes. 9.34pm BST21:34 90 mins: The camera pans across the crowd. It takes a particular kind of person to remain seated and silent when your team’s being promoted to the top flight for the first time ever and the rest of the ground is on their feet, but there are a few. 9.32pm BST21:32 87 mins: Time for one more? Pitman passes to Pugh, who dummies and gives the ball away. The defender gets in a muddle, though, and it ends up with Arter, who screws his shot wide from just outside the box. And that’s Pugh’s final touch. Non-touch, really. Dan Gosling replaces him. 9.29pm BST21:29 85 mins: Arter goes in the book for pulling the shirt of Danns. 9.28pm BST21:28 83 mins: “FWIW, the same accusation was made towards Leicester last season. I think we ended up with 15/16 penalties,” writes Graham Randall of Bournemouth’s penalty-glut. And the same with Palace the year before, when Zaha was a real spot-kick magnet. Reward for attacking endeavour, rather than a conspiracy. 9.26pm BST21:26 83 mins: Matt Ritchie goes off, Ryan Fraser replacing him. He deserves his own ovation. 9.26pm BST21:26 82 mins: “Does this mean we can have the Kermorgant song?” wonders Tom Carding, as @Liam1927 makes a similar suggestion on Twitter. Well, I suppose so. @Simon_Burnton A Song For Yann Kermorgant (penalty miss) - Dave Henson https://t.co/eyglfSA2Vx Got form for this thing! 9.24pm BST21:24 80 mins: Substitution latest: Bournemouth have brought Pitman on for Kermorgant, and Bolton have Woolery on, and Le Fondre off. 9.23pm BST21:23 GOAL! Bournemouth 3-0 Bolton (Wilson, 78 mins) Another lovely goal. A fine overlap from Surman, a pull-back to Wilson, back to goal, he drags the ball back, spins round and scores from seven yards. Beautifully done. Updated at 9.35pm BST 9.21pm BST21:21 13 mins: … which they clear with ease. 9.20pm BST21:20 77 mins: Bolton have a tough old 13 minutes ahead of them. Starting with another corner. 9.18pm BST21:18 74 mins: A free-kick is tapped to Ritchie, who scored an absolute beauty in similar circumstances last week. This one goes high. Bournemouth have been awarded the most penalties in the Championship this season (16). However, they have missed 5 including tonight's. 9.17pm BST21:17 73 mins: It’s not like Wilson was hacked down, but I think 90% of professional footballers go down under that kind of contact, and Dervite has looked red-card-ready from about 10 minutes in. 9.15pm BST21:15 Kermorgant misses from the spot! Kermorgant blazes over the bar! That’s pretty hopeless. He can get the ball on target from 50 yards, but from 12 sometimes it’s not so easy … Updated at 9.26pm BST 9.14pm BST21:14 Bournemouth win another penalty! And their opponents get another red card! 70 mins: Well that’ll further anger their critics. Dervite is sent packing, after putting his hand around the arm of Wilson, who went a-tumblin’. Updated at 9.25pm BST 9.11pm BST21:11 67 mins: Ream tries to take possession of the ball, but finds Smith in his way and bundles him over. Yellow card, and a dangerous free-kick near the corner flag to boot. 9.09pm BST21:09 65 mins: More Bournemouth chancemaking. This ends with Pugh shooting towards, but wide of, the near post from the edge of the area. 9.08pm BST21:08 64 mins: The corner isn’t taken short this time. Instead it’s headed on (by a defender) at the near post, turned towards goal and Wilson fails to connect when swinging his leg wildly at a bouncing ball a couple of yards out. 9.07pm BST21:07 64 mins: Kermorgant nearly scores from 50 yards! Kermorgant it is with the long-range looping effort. Bogdan’s got it covered, to be fair, but can do no more than tip it over the bar! 9.06pm BST21:06 63 mins: A double substitution for Bolton. Liam Feeney comes off, and Oscar Threlkeld comes on, while Eidur Gudjohnsen replaces Mark Davies. 9.06pm BST21:06 62 mins: Bolton win a corner, curled at Heskey at the far post, but Cook just gets there first, when the striker must have been sensing a tap-in. Or at least a shot. Or at the very least an eye-catching miskick. 9.04pm BST21:04 60 mins: Cook should have scored another! It’s another short corner, worked eventually to Wilson, whose cross-shot somehow rumbles just past Cook’s dive and wide of the far post. 9.03pm BST21:03 59 mins: An effort from Bolton! Walker crosses from the left, and Feeney heads wide. OK, not much of an effort, but still. 9.01pm BST21:01 57 mins: Bournemouth attack, Bolton win the ball, give it away again, Bournemouth attack, repeat etc and so forth. 8.59pm BST20:59 55 mins: Arter takes a shot from 35 yards. They can’t all fly into the top corner, and this one doesn’t. It does swerve quite dramatically on its journey into the stand, though. Updated at 8.59pm BST 8.58pm BST20:58 54 mins: A crossfield pass pits Heskey against Smith, just outside the box. The Bournemouth defender (who was winning the contest anyway) falls over under very slight contact, and gets a free-kick. 8.55pm BST20:55 51 mins: Ooooh! Bolton have a shot! A cross from the right is just about kept away from Heskey, but at the expense of sending it to Bannan on the edge of the area. His shot is deflected wide. 8.54pm BST20:54 50 mins: No further chances for the home side, but a couple of nearly-chances. Bolton’s best/only chance was to hold out until half-time and hope the tension got to them, but that horse has bolted now. “I agree with my compatriot JR in that I am absolutely thrilled for Bournemouth,” writes Dan Schuwolf. “45 minutes away from their first tilt at the top flight, brilliant stuff. And in Callum Wilson they have a quality striker who should be able to trouble premier league defenders provided the Cherries hold on today, as he did time and again after I led Coventry City to back-to-back promotions via the playoffs in Fifa 2014.” Updated at 9.18pm BST 8.51pm BST20:51 47 mins: Bournemouth win a corner but make nothing of it. Bannan leads a break, but it lasts as long as it takes him to try a chip over the home defence that doesn’t quite clear them. 8.49pm BST20:49 Peeeeeeeeeeeep! 46 mins: The visitors get the second half under way, and promptly pop the ball into touch for a throw-in. 8.49pm BST20:49 The players are back out and ready for some second-half action. 8.48pm BST20:48 This is basically Luther’s best possible end to the season, is it not? Phew ... Pugh Needed that. COYC 8.45pm BST20:45 I’m looking forward to seeing footage of Bournemouth players engaged in these kind of post-promotional high-jinks. 8.39pm BST20:39 Bournemouth have been criticised for their habit of winning lots of penalties and getting opponents sent off. I don’t see it at all. If you play such slick, speedy attacking football, dizzy, downhearted defenders are going to leave the occasional leg lying about where it shouldn’t be. If you can’t beat them, kick them. Sure, their third goal against Middlesbrough was a bit embarrassing (a ludicrous dive, leading to a penalty), but the Cherries are the most thrilling team in the division by a distance, whatever the table says, and there’s no point anyone else getting in a grump about it. 8.34pm BST20:34 Half time: Bournemouth 2-0 Bolton That’ll do. Updated at 8.39pm BST 8.34pm BST20:34 45+2 mins: This game is way too open, from Bolton’s goal difference’s point of view. Bournemouth attack again, but their left-wing cross floats out of play. 8.32pm BST20:32 45+1 mins: Into stoppage time, of which we’ll have about two minutes, give or take. 8.31pm BST20:31 GOAL! GOOOOAAAALLLLLL! Bournemouth 2-0 Bolton (Ritchie, 44 mins) That’s just splendid. Too fast, too good. Wilson is played in, turns back and passes across the box to Kermorgant, whose first-time pass sets up Ritchie for a lovely, side-foot, first-time shot across Bogdan and in. The question now is how many. Updated at 8.47pm BST 8.29pm BST20:29 42 mins: The goal was celebrated rather enthusiastically, for some reason. A Bournemouth win of course leaves newspapers in a pickle, because they can’t really say they’re promoted, even though they basically are. 8.26pm BST20:26 GOAL! GOAL! GOOOOAAAALLL! Bournemouth 1-0 Bolton (Pugh, 39 mins) A cross from the right finds Pugh unmarked beyond the far post. He controls, shifts the ball onto his left foot and then shoots across goal and in – Bogdan gets his fingertips to it, but he can only push the ball onto the post, from whence it bounces in! Updated at 8.41pm BST 8.25pm BST20:25 38 mins: Feeney has a chance to run at the Bournemouth defence and perhaps take a shot, but he decides he doesn’t fancy it and a few moments later we see why – he passes right, the ball’s crossed and then headed back to Feeney, who now has little choice but to shoot, but miscues his volley way wide. 8.24pm BST20:24 37 mins: Another shot for Bournemouth, this time from Arter, who cuts in from the left wing, runs across the edge of the area and then shoots low but too central, and Bogdan saves again. 8.20pm BST20:20 33 mins: Bolton are doing OK, but Bournemouth are doing considerably better, and Dervite v Pugh looks like a red card waiting to happen. But for Bogdan’s heroics the home side would already be in the lead. How long can the visitors hold out? 8.18pm BST20:18 31 mins: Along the way Dervite got booked, for fouling someone while Bournemouth were on their way to playing in Wilson. Hat-tip to the referee for playing the advantage there. 8.17pm BST20:17 30 mins: Ooooooh! A third super Bogdan stop in the space of 90 seconds, this from Kermorgant’s piledriver. The two earlier saves were both truly excellent. This one was just really good. 8.16pm BST20:16 29 mins: Oooh! And then Ooooooooh! Wilson’s played through and tries to go past Bogdan, only for the keeper to brilliantly recover, just when he appeared to have done so. The ball is worked back to Ritchie, whose powerful low drive from 18 yards is again saved. Updated at 8.31pm BST 8.15pm BST20:15 28 mins: Bannan finds Heskey on the right, and there’s no offside flag this time. Le Fondre makes a run towards the near post, but Heskey’s low cross zips straight to Boruc. 8.13pm BST20:13 27 mins: Bournemouth rush the ball forward, and after an exchange of passes with Surman Kermorgant chips the ball towards the far post from just inside the penalty area, but the ball floats well over the bar. Updated at 8.14pm BST 8.13pm BST20:13 26 mins: Dervite trips Pugh with a fairly cynical reducer, and he two avoids a booking. 8.12pm BST20:12 25 mins: 19-year-old Bolton ace Tom Walker is refreshingly willing to run with the ball, but slightly depressingly willing to run it into thickets of opposition players. 8.10pm BST20:10 24 mins: A lovely pass from Bannan finds Le Fondre, but the linesman makes another very tight offside call. 8.09pm BST20:09 23 mins: Bournemouth try a long, hard pass towards Wilson, but it bounces beyond him and through to Bogdan. The game is precisely 25% over. No reason to panic (yet). 8.08pm BST20:08 22 mins: Ooooh! Another corner taken short. Arter crosses from deep, on the left, and Kermorgant heads over from eight yards! 8.07pm BST20:07 21 mins: Pugh twists this way and that, and then this way again, before winning a corner. It’s also taken short, but eventually hammered clear by Danns. 8.07pm BST20:07 20 mins: Bolton are working the ball out of defence pretty well (which is just as well, as they’ll probably have to do quite a lot of it tonight). They string perhaps a dozen passes together, but then lose the ball midway through Bournemouth’s half. 8.04pm BST20:04 18 mins: Bournemouth pass the ball around in front of Bolton’s deep, massed defence, and then Smith takes a wild shot from 20 yards that flies over. Updated at 8.24pm BST 8.03pm BST20:03 16 mins: Replays show a defender’s hand firmly on Le Fondre’s shoulder as he ran onto the ball in the 14th minute. Had he gone down, the referee might have had a troublesome decision to make. 8.02pm BST20:02 16 mins: The cross is headed clear. 8.01pm BST20:01 15 mins: Pugh makes the most of Moxey’s challenge on the left. It’s a free kick and no more, and the referee agrees. 8.00pm BST20:00 14 mins: What a chance for Bolton! Le Fondre runs onto a flick-on in the penalty area, but by the time he reaches it Boruc is standing about three feet in front of him, and the striker can’t get the ball past him. 7.59pm BST19:59 12 mins: Chance for Bournemouth! They pass it across the area from left to right before finally passing to Ritchie, but his low shot is saved by Bogdan. A manic start to this game, and really very enjoyable. Updated at 8.20pm BST 7.58pm BST19:58 11 mins: Ooooh! Bolton take it short, ping it about a bit on the left and then swing in a cross that’s headed by Dervite at the back post, back across goal towards LeFondre. It’s basically a tap-in but at an awkward height, and he misses it. Besides, the linesman thinks Dervite was offside. Updated at 8.15pm BST 7.57pm BST19:57 11 mins: Bournemouth win the ball in defence, fail to clear, pass the ball between a couple of defenders and then conceded a corner. 7.56pm BST19:56 9 mins: Bolton send a long throw looping into the Bournemouth area. It’s headed away. It says something about Watford’s form that Bournemouth’s 11-match unbeaten run hasn’t been good enough to keep them at the top of the table. 7.54pm BST19:54 7 mins: Wilson is a regular chaos-merchant. Every time the ball comes near him defenders start panicking. 7.53pm BST19:53 7 mins: Bolton cross from the left towards Heskey, but the striker is about six inches offside. He also totally fails to touch the ball. 7.51pm BST19:51 5 mins: Bolton push forward, but Feeney’s cross is headed clear. “This neutral is rooting for a Bournemouth win,” writes JR in Illinois. “If it was some other club like Leeds or Wolves I’d just be rooting for last-day drama but come on, you’ve got to be rooting for the Cherries. Does this make me not a neutral?” I guess, a bit. “The other rooting interest I have is that I want a Norwich-Ipswich matchup in the playoffs, whether in the semi or in the final.” Yup, that’d be a lip-smacking prospect and no mistake. 7.49pm BST19:49 3 mins: Chance for Bournemouth! Wilson takes on Ream towards the left of the area, the defender falls over and suddenly Wilson’s all alone, with two men in support! He jinks inside, ignored the support and shoots low across goal, hitting Bogdan’s legs. 7.48pm BST19:48 2 mins: A predictably frantic opening 90 seconds ends with a free-kick for Bournemouth, in their own half, which Boruc takes. Bolton have made up the names of at least three of their subs. pic.twitter.com/fX3yKoRmSp 7.47pm BST19:47 Peeeeeeeeeeeep! 1 min: Bournemouth do the kick-off duties, and we’re off! 7.46pm BST19:46 … which is impeccably observed, and followed by an explosion of noise. The Premier League beckons. Can Bournemouth handle the weight of history? We’re about to find out. 7.44pm BST19:44 There will be a minute’s silence before the game in memory of the victims of the Bradford fire. 7.42pm BST19:42 The players are on the pitch, and have completed their pre-match handshakes. 7.42pm BST19:42 Eddie Howe talks to Sky: Much as I’d like to downplay it, it’s a massive game for us. We’re aware of the consequences for us. Our last game of the season at home, we want to end it in style. Before Saturday we knew we had to win, and the message to the players has been very consistent: we still want to win. I think we’ve prepared well for the game. We’re going to have to earn everything we’re going to get tonight. And Neil Lennon: It’s a big challenge, but there’s no pressure on us. Our agenda is to come here, win the game and if it does someone else a favour then so be it. 7.36pm BST19:36 Harry Redknapp is on Sky business at the Goldsands tonight. Here are his thoughts on this Bournemouth side (typically taking a bit of credit for it along the way): I thought they could make the top six. To do what they’ve done has just been amazing. The job Eddie’s done here has just been unbelievable. I signed Eddie here, took him to Bournemouth, and he’s proved himself to be a fantastic young manager. They play a brand of football that I think every manager would love to play. All-round, they’re just a great attacking team. Also, they don’t concede many goals. Tonight won’t be easy, but I’m pretty confident they can do the job. 7.27pm BST19:27 This isn’t a programme, it’s a novella. 7.11pm BST19:11 He’s also taken charge of two Bolton games already this season, away games at Charlton and Leeds. They lost both (2-1 and 1-0 respectively). 7.10pm BST19:10 Simon Hooper has refereed Bournemouth twice already this season, their home game against Middlesbrough and their visit to Blackburn. Both games ended 0-0. 7.09pm BST19:09 The teams! Here are the teams again, in non-Twitter form and with substitutes and a referee and everything. Bournemouth: Boruc, Smith, Elphick, Cook, Daniels, Ritchie, Arter, Surman, Pugh, Kermorgant, Wilson. Subs: Camp, Gosling, Pitman, Harte, Fraser, Ward, Jones. Bolton: Bogdan, Ream, Dervite, Moxey, Feeney, Mark Davies, Danns, Bannan, Walker, Heskey, Le Fondre. Subs: Gudjohnsen, Lonergan, Twardzik, Woolery, Taylor, Threlkeld, Coke. Referee: Simon Hooper. 6.54pm BST18:54 The teams! The two teams have been revealed on Twitter, and they look like this: Cherries XI to face #BWFC: Boruc, Smith, Elphick, Cook, Daniels, Ritchie, Surman, Arter, Pugh, Kermorgant, Wilson. #AFCBvBWFC #afcb #BWFC team to face @afcbournemouth: Bogdan, Moxey, Ream, Dervite, Feeney, Walker, Bannan, Danns, M Davies, Heskey, Le Fondre #BOUvBOL Full team sheets to follow … 6.45pm BST18:45 Hello world! They would be famous around the town forever. The last 10 days in the Championship title chase have been momentous in ways nobody could have expected. When the final whistle blew on Watford 1-0 Birmingham the Hornets were second in the league and still locked in a three-and-a-half-way scrap for promotion – Norwich’s defeat to Middlesbrough the previous evening having badly wounded the Canaries’ bid for a top two place, though they remained, as of that moment, a breachable three points behind the Hornets, with Bournemouth a further point ahead. The race to this title has been one of such sustained excellence from all concerned that what has since transpired has been a shock and a disappointment. It has been a little like the recent Miami Open final, when after Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic shared two closely-fought, high-quality sets the notional viewer must have been tempted to look at his notional neighbour with an arched eyebrow and a wry grin and whisper something along the lines of, “Phwooar, this is a bit tasty. We’re all set for a humdinger of a final set here, eh?” Only for one player, having contributed so much for so long, to roll over and lose it 0-6. About three minutes after the final whistle went at Vicarage Road last weekend Bournemouth conceded a 95th-minute penalty equaliser against Sheffield Wednesday, and the Hornets found themselves unexpectedly a point clear. And then on Saturday, Watford having fought to a 2-0 victory at Brighton in the early kick-off, both Norwich and Middlesbrough had a man sent off, the Canaries let in an 86th-minute equaliser and Boro, set to go second at least temporarily with a draw at Fulham, inexplicably sent their goalkeeper upfield for a corner, from which the Cottagers broke and Ross McCormack scored a winner. So it was that Watford found themselves unexpectedly promoted. The Hornets have just continued to play as they’d been playing for a while, and it hadn’t allowed them to take a decisive lead at the top of the table before. Nor would it now had, in the last nine days, their rivals not conceded three penalties, had three men sent off and dropped seven out of nine possible points. Should this disappointing trend continue with a Bournemouth slip this evening Watford will be champions, and the brilliant four-way final-day title tussle that the clubs involved had spent nine months and a cumulative 163 matches setting up will have been totally ruined in about a week. But surely that won’t happen. Bournemouth won 2-1 at Bolton earlier this season despite having a man sent off in the first half with the game still goalless. In fact, Bolton have lost home and away against all the top four, and taken just one point – a goalless home draw with Ipswich – from the current top six, a record so dismal only Blackpool can equal it. And there could hardly be any greater incentive for the home side: it’s their last home game of the season and they know that, should they win tonight, barring not just defeat at Charlton this Saturday but credulity-counfounding final-day goal-difference chaos, they will be promoted. And, as Eddie Howe explained t’other day, that’d be quite a big thing. Since joining the Football League 92 years ago, this club has never been in the top flight. What a legacy the players could leave if they were to go up. They would be the first group of players from this club to go into that division and they would make history. They would be famous around the town forever so that should be a big motivation for them to try to achieve it. Meanwhile the only motivation Bolton have is the perverse pleasure of denying others pleasure. It’s a perverse pleasure that Neil Lennon seems quite keen on: Bournemouth have got a huge motivation to win the game, they have the Premier League in their sights now. But there will be a nervous tension about the match right from the off, and I think it’s something we can use. There’s going to be a party atmosphere in the ground and I don’t like that. If they think we’ll go all the way down there to make up the numbers, roll over and give them three points then they’d better think again. It’s good to think we could give teams like this a bloody nose from time to time. So will Bournemouth end this game with a massive grin or a bloody nose? Time alone will tell. I’m looking forward to it. Neutrals: would it be better for Bournemouth to win today, leave the title to be decided on Saturday in a potentially exciting fashion, or for them to lose today, setting up a three-way final-day tussle for the second promotion spot? As a Watford-leaning person I suppose I’m not entirely unbiased … |