JACK’S BACK TO CRACK CRAWLEY

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JACK WILSHERE rolled back the years to help fire Bournemouth into the fifth round and end the FA Cup dream of giant-killers Crawley.

Wilshere scored a brilliant goal on his first start since returning to Bournemouth, with Josh King getting the winner after Tom Nichols had equalised for the League Two side.

“I forgot how to celebrate,” joked Wilshere. “I was a bit shocked. From a personal point of view it was just a pleasure to be back starting a game. Last time I was here I didn’t score and it didn’t sit well with me.”

With the tie moved from the weekend after a Covid outbreak at Crawley, the only training the rest of the squad had done since thrashing Leeds 3-0 in the third round was a few fitness sessions on Zoom.

And it showed as the Cherries were much too sharp for John Yems’ side in the first half.

Yems tore into Bournemouth ahead of kick-off, accusing them of “betrayal” over his sacking as Football Operations Manager in 2018.

But the Cherries hit back with a statement of their own saying Yems’ comments were “misleading and “inaccurate”.

Arnaut Danjuma was a livewire on the left and saw an early shot well saved by Glenn Morris.

Philip Billing then thumped a header against the post from Josh Brooks’ corner.

But a brilliant move was finished off with a vintage finish from Wilshere, who struck a first-time shot into the corner after brilliant approach play from Danjuma and Josh King.

With Crawley struggling to keep up with the pace they did have one chance in the first half as Ashley Nadesan hit a cross shot which Asmir Begovic pushed clear.

Though Bournemouth were dominant, Crawley came out for the second half much more on the front foot.

That was most likely down to Yems’ half-time team talk, and the manager said: “I cannot tell you what I said or I’d get arrested.

“We’ve had our moment in the sun and we came here tonight and we are disappointed to lose.”.

Tom Nichols’ was a whisker away from equalising when Begovic made a mess of a clearance but the Bosnian stopper recovered quickly to save his own blushes.

But moments later Nichols was celebrating as Josh Wright’s header reached him at the far post and he scored from close range to leave the Sussex side dreaming of another upset.

Those dreams were shattered only six minutes later when Brooks and Danjuma combined to tee up King, who thumped into the far corner.

“I felt we were well in control of the game tonight,” said Bournemouth manager Jason Tindall.

“We created a number of really good opportunities tonight and the disappointing thing was that we did not score more goals.”

WIL POWER Wilshere fires home into the corner to put his side ahead