CHERRY ON TOP! Howe: Six-pointer win with 10 men can reboot our season
EDDIE HOWE declared that his Bournemouth team are “alive and kicking” after they bloodied Aston Villa’s noses in a right old relegation ding-dong.
Phillip Billing and Nathan Ake put the home side in control of the game before the break.
But Jefferson Lerma’s dismissal for a second yellow card early in the second half gave Dean Smith’s men a route back in.
New boy Mbwana Samatta halved the deficit with Villa’s first headed goal of the season and what had looked like a routine march to victory for the Cherries became anything but.
They held on, though, thanks to some backs-tothe-wall defending – and the final blast of referee Anthony Taylor’s whistle was greeted by players, management staff and fans alike as if they’d just won a major trophy.
Howe and his men paraded round half the ground before linking arms in the half they’d just defended.
And the Bournemouth boss said: “How’s the pulse? It was off the radar for a spell. It has calmed down now but that’s one of the many beauties of football, the emotions attached.
“And that was one that was going all over the place, because we played so well up till the sending off – that is as good as we’ve played for a while.
“The red card changed everything. We felt a little hard done by, Jeff was incredibly unlucky as there were other challenges that didn’t go punished with yellow cards that were worse than that.
“But with that feeling and how the game had gone and the run of form we have been on, it was hugely important we got over the line.
“We don’t know whether it will define our season but it seems like a big
moment now. The message in the huddle was that the passion we showed in this game has to be consistent.
“That has been one of the key things that has been missing from some of our performances this season.
“But we saw how much the players care, we know they have the ability, we just have to hit those heights of feeling and emotion as much as we can. We’ve shown we are still alive and kicking. “We have a long, long way to go before we can say we have done anything.
Nothing is done.” Very true, but the confidence that Bournemouth will take from this may well be their season’s defining moment. Billing typified their fight and desire with a great performance, particularly after Lerma’s dismissal. Lerma had been superb and it was no surprise when Cherries took the lead. Sergio Rico’s teasing ball into the box ran through. Simon Francis returned it from the right, Dan Gosling headed down, and Billing crashed home a low effort past Pepe Reina. Ake (left) made it two, stabbing in when Ryan Fraser (inset) saw his shot parried by Reina after Mings failed to clear Harry Wilson’s free-kick. Samatta gave Villa hope midway in the half after Keinan Davis’s shot looped off Francis, but Bournemouth held on and visiting boss Smith moaned: “A few decisions cost us in the end.”