We aren't meant to approve of deforestation but sometimes you just have to give credit to those with the axe. Bournemouth were simply magnificent in their brutality.
And of course that isn't anything new. They have been for some time now, blitzing their way to an unbeaten run of 10 league games before this one, but who could have expected them to reduce Nottingham Forest to splinters quite like this?
Who could have forecast that when the division's two most surprising, refreshing bolters met, there would be such a conclusive winner?
To contextualise, let's go to the song that echoed from three corners of the Vitality Stadium throughout stoppage time: 'We want six.'
Poor souls didn't get it, but five was plenty. Five was a mauling. Five was more than Nuno Espirito Santo's brilliant side had conceded in their previous seven Premier League games combined on their surge to the top three.
If that run had slightly obscured the wonders of Bournemouth's own campaign, then how those roles inverted. Dango Ouattara was the headline act, scoring a second half hat-trick, but there were far more components, including Justin Kluivert, whose three against Newcastle was followed by the opener here and added an assist. Antoine Semenyo wrapped it up, but the greater detail is the way Andoni Iraola's team play.
They are breathless, frenetic, a vision of movement. Like Forest, they are direct and fast, making both sides a charming point of difference to the attacking patience we usually see in the top reaches of the tables, but they imposed themselves on Forest. They pressed them into the dirt.
For perhaps the first time in this campaign, Bournemouth also succeeded in making Forest look predictable. Those long balls and quick breaks that held Liverpool a fortnight ago had almost no say on this match. They were simply gathered and returned with venom and hard running. It was brilliant and compelling to watch.
That Iraola is able to pull off such complex choreography with 11 men injured is quite the achievement, but it is working against so many styles.
For this one, the challenge was whether his fancy for risk-and-reward football would play into the wishes of a side that counters with utter viciousness.
The earliest signs favoured Forest – inside 15 seconds, Matz Sels punted long, Chris Wood rapidly fed in Anthony Elanga and the strike was only a fraction wide.
But quickly Bournemouth took a subtle grip on the game and their opener, in the ninth minute, was a belter in two parts. First, it came in the one-touch rondo between David Brooks, Lewis Cook, Ryan Christie and Tyler Adams to unpin themselves from a swarm of blue shirts by their own area, before the latter threaded a ball to Kluivert.
His charge began 10 yards inside his own half and the further Forest retreated, the more uninhibited Kluivert became.
Reaching the edge of the Forest box, he drilled low, hard and to the right of Sels. Nuno seemed to think Ola Aina had the responsibility of stepping in to challenge, and he'd be right, but this was a goal created rather than conceded.
Forest managed a response of sorts, with Ryan Yates and Morgan Gibbs-White sharing a pair of dangerous volleys at goal, before Sels saved from Semenyo at the other end. It was shaping into that sort of afternoon for Nuno, where momentum lived only in short bursts.
Their game was up early in the second half. The strike for 2-0 originated with a Bournemouth corner that Forest partially cleared, only to be caught on their heels when Cook clipped into the left channel for Kluivert. His cross was good but had nothing on the leap with which Ouattara beat Murillo to the header.
Kluivert had a goal correctly disallowed a couple of minutes later for offside, though the frustration eased quickly, with Adams capitalising on some carelessness by Nathan Dominguez and assisting Outtara for his second of the match. Murillo, so impressive this season, was too easily turned prior to the shot.
The fourth was traced to a bigger mistake, this time from Sels, another big performer, who was caught between thoughts in palming a relatively tame cross-shot Marcus Tavernier. It was a gaffe that fell at the feet of man only too happy to oblige with a hat-trick.
Even then there was time for a fifth, nailed by Semenyo off a Tavernier assist. The crowd wanted more but will learn to live with their disappointment.
Read more 2025-01-25T17:43:40Z