AFC Bournemouth (A) 26/10/25

AFC Bournemouth 2-0 Nottingham Forest

Tavernier 25'

Junior Kroupi 40'

After succeeding in his first Europa League game in charge of Forest, Sean Dyche was looking for the same success in his first game in the Premier League. The task wasn’t going to be easy; his side were travelling down to the south coast to face Bournemouth. Not only are the Cherries unbeaten in their last seven league games whilst Forest haven’t won in their last seven, they have a brilliant record against Forest, especially at home. The Reds last beat Bournemouth in 2015 at the City Ground and have failed to win in their last ten meetings with the Cherries, losing six and drawing four.

Both managers made one change to the last side they put out. Dyche replaced the injured Zinchenko with Nicolo Savona to see the Reds name their youngest starting eleven in the league this season. Chris Wood was still side-lined with a knee injury much to his manager’s frustration as 49 out of Wood’s 91 Premier League goals have come under Dyche at Burnley. Iraola also made a defensive change as Milosavljevic came in for Diakite.

The first half can only be described as the Bournemouth show. The Cherries almost took the lead just two minutes in. After receiving the ball out on the right 40 yards from goal, Marcus Tavernier drove forward before cutting inside and shooting from just outside the box. His effort was fired towards the bottom right corner but Sels got down sharply to make the save. This got the hosts off to a brilliant start. They were really pinning Forest back in their own half and every time they went forward, they looked like scoring.

For their total domination in the opening 25 minutes, the Cherries took a deserved lead, although the way the goal occurred was controversial. Tavernier won a corner out on the right but on replay, you can see the ball came off him. The man who won the corner was the one to deliver it into the box but his corner looped over Sels and went straight in. Forest have not managed to win a game when going behind this season and Bournemouth are yet to lose when going ahead. Trying to change this statistic was Neco Williams with the visitors best and only chance of the half. He received the ball from Hudson-Odoi before turning to shoot from the edge of the box but Petrovic was alert to the danger, parrying it away.

The visitors could not get themselves going and were still under constant threat from their opponents. A quick Bournemouth attack saw Sels forced into a good save. Tavernier had the opportunity to have his fifth shot of the afternoon but he passed to Alex Scott with more room to have an effort. Scott took on the effort first time from the edge of the ‘d’, looking for the bottom right corner but Sels was equal to the shot, really stretching for it.

As the first 45 minutes drew to a close, the hosts found a deserved goal to double their lead. In the middle of the park, Anderson and Douglas Luiz decided to go for the same ball, allowing Adams to latch onto it. In an attempt to stop the break, Anderson dragged the American to the floor but Junior Kroupi regathered the ball and darted towards goal. The young forward was allowed to drive forward 20 yards without being engaged by a Forest player so he decided to take on the shot from 30 yards. His effort bounced into the bottom left corner to give the Cherries more breathing room. Although Forest will be disappointed by the quality of the goals they conceded, Bournemouth rightfully were going into the break ahead.

In the opening 15 minutes of the second half, Forest looked much better. Dyche made three substitutions at half time to give his team a boost and it seemed to have worked. Despite getting into good areas, it was the same story with Forest as recently; the final bit of quality is lacking. Bournemouth grew back into the game, getting back on the ball. The first shot on target in the second half was a Forest one, coming in the 78^th minute. Gibbs-White found half-time substitute Hutchinson in the penalty area. The winger was surrounded by black and red shirts so he returned the favour to Gibbs-White with a back heel pass. The Englishman took on the shot first time from the edge of the box which looked to be going in but Petrovic executed a brilliant save to keep his clean sheet intact.

Despite needing a goal to get themselves back into the game, Forest couldn’t find it and they were headed back to Nottingham empty handed leaving them still in the relegation zone whilst Bournemouth flew into second.

Sunday’s game was disappointing. From the off, Bournemouth were just all over us. We lacked any intensity and tempo, we barely won any second balls, our gaps in midfield were too big and we were letting them run at us. This may be due to playing Thursday as the players were looking tired from around 70 minutes. Although they shouldn’t have had that corner they scored from, you still have to defend it and to concede directly from a corner is so poor. The second goal was also poor as neither centre back came to engage the shot and they let Kroupi have so much space. We also never looked like scoring apart from Gibbs-White’s shot. Right now, it is hard to see where a goal is going to come from unless it’s a set-piece. We get into good areas at times and then one of our players can’t make a simple pass and we’ve ruined the opportunity. My only real positive was Awoniyi. He was up there really battling with the Bournemouth centre halves and when we won the ball there was no support around him to help. I don’t think we need to panic yet but we need to start doing the basics right because if you don’t do them right, you won’t get very far.

Bournemouth: Petrovic; Jiminez, Milosavljevic, Senesi, Truffert; Scott (Christie 80’), Adams; Tavernier (Unal 90’), Kluivert (Brooks 69’), Semenyo (Cook 90’); Junior Kroupi (Adli 69’)

Forest: Sels; Savona, Milenkovic, Murillo, Williams; Ndoye (Dominguez 83’), Luiz (Yates 46’), Anderson, Hudson-Odoi (Hutchinson 46’); Gibbs-White (Kalimuendo 89’); Igor Jesus (Awoniyi 46’)