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!
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.
One more game to go... http://t.co/vJmQUft09p #afcb pic.twitter.com/A3oTKc7kGw
— AFC Bournemouth (@afcbournemouth) April 27, 2015
The Cherries with the smallest PL ground since the Tangerines. Oranges are not the only fruit.
— Duncan Alexander (@oilysailor) April 27, 2015
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.
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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.
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.
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.
90+1 mins: Into stoppage time, of which there will be three minutes.
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.
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.
85 mins: Arter goes in the book for pulling the shirt of Danns.
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.
83 mins: Matt Ritchie goes off, Ryan Fraser replacing him. He deserves his own ovation.
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!
— Our Man Flint (@Liam1927) April 27, 2015
80 mins: Substitution latest: Bournemouth have brought Pitman on for Kermorgant, and Bolton have Woolery on, and Le Fondre off.
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.
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13 mins: … which they clear with ease.
77 mins: Bolton have a tough old 13 minutes ahead of them. Starting with another corner.
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.
— Sky Sports Statto (@SkySportsStatto) April 27, 2015
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.
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 …
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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’.
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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.
65 mins: More Bournemouth chancemaking. This ends with Pugh shooting towards, but wide of, the near post from the edge of the area.
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.
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!
63 mins: A double substitution for Bolton. Liam Feeney comes off, and Oscar Threlkeld comes on, while Eidur Gudjohnsen replaces Mark Davies.
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.
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.
59 mins: An effort from Bolton! Walker crosses from the left, and Feeney heads wide. OK, not much of an effort, but still.
57 mins: Bournemouth attack, Bolton win the ball, give it away again, Bournemouth attack, repeat etc and so forth.
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.
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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.
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.
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.”
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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.
Peeeeeeeeeeeep!
46 mins: The visitors get the second half under way, and promptly pop the ball into touch for a throw-in.
The players are back out and ready for some second-half action.
This is basically Luther’s best possible end to the season, is it not?
Phew ... Pugh Needed that. COYC
— Luther Blissett (@LBliss8) April 27, 2015
I’m looking forward to seeing footage of Bournemouth players engaged in these kind of post-promotional high-jinks.
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.
Half time: Bournemouth 2-0 Bolton
That’ll do.
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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.
45+1 mins: Into stoppage time, of which we’ll have about two minutes, give or take.
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
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.
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!
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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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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
26 mins: Dervite trips Pugh with a fairly cynical reducer, and he two avoids a booking.
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.
24 mins: A lovely pass from Bannan finds Le Fondre, but the linesman makes another very tight offside call.
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).
22 mins: Ooooh! Another corner taken short. Arter crosses from deep, on the left, and Kermorgant heads over from eight yards!
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.
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.
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.
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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.
16 mins: The cross is headed clear.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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11 mins: Bournemouth win the ball in defence, fail to clear, pass the ball between a couple of defenders and then conceded a corner.
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 mins: Wilson is a regular chaos-merchant. Every time the ball comes near him defenders start panicking.
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.
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.
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.
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
— Rory Smith (@RorySmithTimes) April 27, 2015
Peeeeeeeeeeeep!
1 min: Bournemouth do the kick-off duties, and we’re off!
… 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.
There will be a minute’s silence before the game in memory of the victims of the Bradford fire.
The players are on the pitch, and have completed their pre-match handshakes.
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.
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.
This isn’t a programme, it’s a novella.
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).
Simon Hooper has refereed Bournemouth twice already this season, their home game against Middlesbrough and their visit to Blackburn. Both games ended 0-0.
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.
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
— AFC Bournemouth (@afcbournemouth) April 27, 2015
#BWFC team to face @afcbournemouth: Bogdan, Moxey, Ream, Dervite, Feeney, Walker, Bannan, Danns, M Davies, Heskey, Le Fondre #BOUvBOL
— Bolton Wanderers FC (@OfficialBWFC) April 27, 2015
Full team sheets to follow …
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 …
