CHERRIES BLOSSOM
Howe takes heart from fightback as Stanislas stars in dramatic finish
MAYBE their luck has turned, maybe this is what Bournemouth needed to turn their season from one of broken bodies and anticlimax to one of quiet hope.
They were twice buried here, first when Ramiro Funes Mori and Romelu Lukaku put Everton 2-0 ahead, and then when Ross Barkley smacked them in the guts to make it 3-2 five minutes into stoppage time.
Manager Eddie Howe looked a battered man at that point. How low could this season go? But whatever else is said about this side, with their weak defence and busy treatment room, they know how to stick to a task.
Adam Smith and Junior Stanislas scored the goals to make it 2-2 and then, after Barkley had apparently wrecked the party, up jumped Stanislas in the eighth additional minute to head Bournemouth into a different state of mind. Zero points became one: the sort of small reward that might have a big impact.
This season has been one long slog. They were a feel-good story with their promotion but over the course of this campaign have increasingly looked doomed. Then this. If their season is to be saved, moments like this will have been crucial.
‘I don’t think the players would have got to this point if they weren’t fighters, if they weren’t special people,’ Howe said. ‘The most important thing for me is that we’ve looked a really good side recently. To score three goals against this Everton team is really pleasing.’
With that, Howe headed for home. It is his 38th birthday today and there have been times this season when he seems to have visibly aged. ‘The emotional turmoil of a game like that means an early night for me,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in a better mood but I’m not sure whether I’ll celebrate.’
With fixtures against Chelsea and Manchester United up next, he needs to drastically improve his defence and solve a goalkeeping crisis, with Adam Federici injuring his ankle and Artur Boruc out with a knee problem.
He said: ‘Feds seemed to have twisted his ankle as he jumped for a corner. I’m not sure how bad it is but it doesn’t look good.’
The day might have been so much worse. Instead, it was Roberto Martinez feeling the weight of a missed opportunity. His side have failed to win back-to-back Premier League fixtures this season but with some consistency they could be a real nuisance to the top four. They certainly have the talent to destroy teams, as they threatened to do here.
Lukaku, in particular, is blazing a trail at the moment. With eight goals in eight the Everton striker is a wrecking ball at the head of his own team. His goal to make it 2-0 should have won this game but instead Martinez was left staggered by what unfolded.
He said: ‘At times in football you have to accept how those moments that are impossible to explain happen.
‘Bournemouth have been unfortunate but in this game they had that bit of fortune. We felt we lost two points twice in the game.’
It is hard to argue, especially when you consider Everton’s dominance of the first half. The breakthrough came after 25 minutes, with Barkley’s excellent cross met by Funes Mori. It was Everton’s first goal from a set piece this season.
The second goal was far more irritating for Howe and no less direct. Gerard Deulofeu hit a long, low ball down the right flank and Lukaku took possession inside the area with his back to goal. Steve Cook gave him the space needed to take a touch, perform a turn and send a shot past Federici.
The goalkeeper, who had needed treatment earlier in the half, was replaced at half-time by Ryan Allsop but somehow, from the rubble, came a recovery. And what a recovery.
Smith, on for Cook, scored a lovely goal from 25 yards after Tom Cleverley only partly cleared a corner and then Josh King made the equaliser, rolling a low cross that Stanislas finished.
That might have been it, but Barkley scored in stoppage time with a shot Allsop should have saved. Everton spent an age celebrating but how misguided that looked when, somehow, the leveller from Stanislas came.
Incredible, really. And how decisive it might be for at least one of these teams.