In the meeting of lower middle-class upstarts, Bournemouth stopped Nottingham Forest dead in their tracks. Forest’s Champions League dreams took a jolt into reality, let alone any wild reverie of a Leicester 2016-like title charge. Just like Manchester City and Arsenal at the Vitality Stadium, like Newcastle a week previously, Forest were picked apart, a previously imperious defence disassembled by the warp-speed attacking of a squad with just 12 fit senior players.
Bournemouth fans wanted six. Theirs is the team of the moment. If Andoni Iraola and Nuno Espírito Santo share enigmatic qualities of improving teams and individuals, it was the Basque, the friendly ideologue, who prevailed over the Portuguese whose Zen-like calm masks hard-bitten sensibilities.
“I will not change the approach we are taking,” said Iraola as his team’s rise continued. “We are taking the games game by game. We have Liverpool next. We are thin on numbers.”
After the 4-1 win at Newcastle, and a full week’s rest, Bournemouth were unchanged and just as devastating. As with Newcastle, Forest met them in rare form – only Liverpool having taken points off Nuno’s side since 4 December – only to fall flat on their faces. “We did a lot of things wrong,” said Nuno.
“To score first was key,” Iraola said. Justin Kluivert’s opener ruined best-laid plans. Last week’s hat-trick hero sped onwards as Forest defenders ran back in numbers, Ola Aina rubbernecking away, but as no challenge came in, Kluivert let fly. Matz Sels found himself unsighted in the Forest goal.
Ryan Yates’ return as Forest’s midfield aggressor was Nuno’s attempt to throw Bournemouth’s high press back on them, to defend in numbers so that pacy counter-presses and counterattacks would run into traffic. “Our team needs to be close to each other,” Nuno said. “The moment we lose that aspect of the game, it becomes so much harder.”
Bournemouth stayed on the accelerator. Always, as their manager asks. The squad’s imaginative, clever construction is married to their manager’s ability to improve and rejuvenate. Kluivert was unwanted at Roma but now, at what point does Patrick Kluivert become known merely as Justin’s dad? Another Roma graduate – how did they or Juventus let such obvious talent depart? – Dean Huijsen made a couple of those languid, gliding forward runs that remind of a Virgil van Dijk or Laurent Blanc in full flow. “He’s doing it every game, someone who is so young,” said Iraola.
Forest’s away support – as fervent as any in the Premier League, living the dream this season – were quietened. Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic, previously perhaps the best centre-back pairing in England, became increasingly bewildered, powerless as their opponents piled on the agony. “We have to realise the things we did well until now, we have to do it,” said Nuno. “When we don’t do those things we are a very fragile team.”
For a spell, Yates and Jota Silva, midfield provocateurs, slowed Bournemouth’s progress. Forest entered the break fortunate to be just a single goal behind. If there has been a complaint about the Iraola machine, it is chances missed; the injury crisis has robbed him of his strikers. Not that anyone would notice from recent weeks, or with Kluivert and Dango Ouattara rattling them in.
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Nuno’s half-time solution was to replace Yates with Nicolás Dominguez, Elliot Anderson asked to drive forward alongside him. It brought brief territorial gains but little coherence. Crucially, it vacated space. Sent away down the left, Kluivert cut inside and drifted the ball to the back-post where Ouattara’s hang-time gave him the inches to nod back across Sels. “The four games he has played as a No 9, I think he’s playing really well,” said Iraola.
VAR next intervened after Kluivert had ended a wave of attacks by netting, only for Ouattara, his supplier, to have been offside. By now, Forest were reeling, shapeless, Nuno pacing in visible annoyance. Ouattara made up for his previous lack of positioning when springing the offside trap, sent away by Tyler Adams, another jewel lately polished, blazing through to score. His third came when Marcus Tavernier’s shot was deflected by the now hapless Sels into his path. Antoine Semenyo’s fifth – so easy – completed a statement win for club and manager. Liverpool beware?
Source: theguardian.com
