Graham Pearcey

Date: 8 October 2022

For the second time under interim head coach O’Neil, the Cherries came from behind to win a match. At Forest, a 0-2 deficit had been turned into a 3-2 win; today a 0-1 was turned into 2-1.

Once again the afternoon was very hot and sunny – quite different from the forecast. As we waited to hear what the starting line-up was to be, one mascot was revealing that her favourite player is Mark Travers. Well, we were unlikely to see much of him today! In the event, there were two changes from the previous week: Christie for Moore and Fredericks for Zemura.

Christie fluffed an early chance to score (although in fairness all Bournemouth advances in the first half seemed to come through him, partly because no-one seemed willing to pass to Tavernier who was begging for the ball). But we were poor in this half, and we gifted Leicester an easy goal. As a VAR check was announced (for a possible offside) we cheered and Leicester fans cursed – but the goal stood. The scorer was Daka, surprisingly starting in place of Vardy who was on the bench. Late in the half we had a penalty shout when Fredericks appeared to be brought down in the area, but the referee yellow-carded Fredericks and once again VAR upheld his decision. Half-time: 0-1.

We were exactly half way through the second half (and Brendan Rogers had just made substitutions) when we got to witness some excellent solo work by Solanke, taking on several Leicester players. When he finally took a shot, it was blocked – but Billing (already our highest scorer of the season) was on hand to smash the ball into the net. 1-1. Just four minutes later, some brilliant work by Christie on Bournemouth’s right led to further involvement from Billing and Solanke before Christie popped up again (now on Bournemouth’s left!) to score. 2-1.

Four minutes were added to the ninety, and during this time Moore (a substitute) passed to Anthony (another substitute) who fired the ball into the net. This must have reminded everyone of the Forest game when Anthony had scored the third goal late on. Unfortunately, though, this one was definitely offside and wouldn’t count. As the final seconds counted down Bournemouth players played into the corner as much as possible to waste time.

The changing fortunes of Leicester during the course of the game were reflected in the crowd’s songs. When Leicester were in the lead their fans were singing “You’re going down with the Forest.” After we’d equalised our fans were singing “You’re going down with the Forest.” And by the end Leicester fans were displaying a generous dose of gallows humour as they sang “We’re going down!”

The team lined up as follows at the start of the game:

Neto;
Fredericks, Mepham, Senesi, Smith;
Lerma;
Christie, Billing, Cook, Tavernier;
Solanke

By the end the line-up was:

Neto;
Stacey, Mepham, Senesi, Smith;
Christie, Lerma, Cook, Tavernier;
Moore, Anthony

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