Key events
76 min: Another dismal Bournemouth corner. This is getting old.
75 min: Kluivert slips a ball down the left channel for Kerkez, whose persistence wins Bournemouth another corner down the left. Before it can be taken, Sensei comes on for Adams.
74 min: Both teams are currently putting in a shift – this match is still being played at 101 mph – but there’s not a lot of quality at the minute. Not too many progressive passes finding their target.
72 min: Kluivert drives in from the left before playing a cute reverse pass down the inside-left channel. Too strong for Tavernier, and Martinez claims. Bournemouth still haven’t got an effort on target all evening.
70 min: Asensio is wisely hooked. He makes way for McGinn, while Torres replaces Mings. Meanwhile Bournemouth send on Brooks at the cost of their 400-up man Smith.
68 min: Asensio clips Evanilson, who had just spun him elegantly. Just a free kick. But having already been booked, Asensio is surely on thin ice now.
67 min: … Cook goes long, to no avail. Bournemouth’s corners have been appalling this evening.
66 min: Tavernier threads a delightful pass up the left touchline to release Kluivert into space, and keeps going, getting the ball back and forcing a corner. From which …
64 min: Now Digne tries the same down the other end. That long throw’s easily dealt with too. Tony Pulis and Rory Delap very much back in vogue, it would seem.
63 min: Semenyo sends a long throw into the Villa box from the left. Martinez comes way off his line to pluck it from the sky. Martinez showing his old club Arsenal how to deal with Semenyo, there.
61 min: A Villa free kick out on the left. Asensio sends it long to Cash on the opposite flank, who can’t guide a header into the mixer. There goes that attack. This has become scrappy again.
59 min: … but Kerkez keeps going, his industry winning another corner down the left. Cook, having sent the last two to the near post, goes a bit longer, but Martinez reads the intention and claims with confidence from the middle of a crowded six-yard box.
58 min: Kluivert goes through the gears down the inside-left, in the hope of getting his team moving. But then he clanks a simple pass intended for Kerkez straight into touch. More frustration manifests itself.
56 min: … nothing occurs, as Martinez claims. A few Bournemouth faces are already betraying a little frustration.
55 min: Semenyo and Kerkez exchange passes down the left to win a corner. Cook’s delivery fails to beat the first man, but nevertheless is enough to win a second corner, from which …
53 min: Kerkez takes out Rogers, but only as a result of slipping on the turf. Unlike Evanilson against Manchester United, there’s no rum decision to follow.
51 min: Evanilson harasses Mings and Konsa, but the Villa defensive duo keep their cool and eventually draw a foul. Then Cook comes sliding in on Onana, the Villa midfielder feeling the challenge, but the referee’s not interested in punishing the Bournemouth man.
49 min: It’s fair to say this match took a while to get going. But since the announcement of added time at the end of the first half, this has been great fun. Everyone suddenly remembering what’s at stake.
47 min: .. and then up the other end, Semenyo makes good down the left, reaches the byline and cuts back for Kluivert, who twinkletoes his way around the box and looks for space down the inside-left channel. He can’t find the time to shoot, so elects to look for a penalty by leaving his leg near the outstratched arm of Martinez. He goes over, but there’s no contact. He’s slightly fortunate not to get booked for diving.
46 min: Villa nearly double their lead within 30 seconds of the restart. Digne romps down the left and cuts back for Ramsey, who can’t work space to shoot. But he lays off to Kamara, who from the edge of the D sends a fierce whistler inches wide of the right-hand post. Not sure Kepa had that covered.
Aston Villa get the second half underway. Bournemouth have made a change, sending on Kluivert for Scott, who copped that wild Mings elbow to the jaw, and was also on a booking.
Half-time entertainment. Now then, regarding that battle for a place in next year’s Champions League, into which Villa have, as it stands, firmly inserted themselves (they’ll be sixth on 63 points, level with Newcastle and Chelsea, if it finishes like this) …
That goal puts Ollie Watkins on top of Aston Villa’s all-time Premier League goalscoring chart. It’s his 75th goal in the competition, beating Gabriel Agbonlahor’s long-standing mark of 74. Dwight Yorke is next up with 60, Dion Dublin with 48. But it’s still a long way short of their all-time league list: that’s got Harry Hampton in front with 215, Billy Walker next with 214 and John Devey third with 169. For the record, the recently departed Peter McParland finished his Villa league career in eighth place on that list with 97. But then his legend is more built on the cup, anyway.
HALF TIME: Bournemouth 0-1 Aston Villa
Forty-five minutes of pretty much nothing, before things escalated entertainingly during added time. That adds insult to injury for poor Alex Scott, because all that extra time was only added on for the treatment he required as a result of Tyrone Mings knocking him on the jaw with his elbow. Safe to say there’s now a little bit of an edge to this match.
GOAL! Bournemouth 0-1 Aston Villa (Watkins 45+6)
The resulting free kick is half cleared down the Villa right. Rogers sends it back into the mixer. Watkins extends a leg and feathers a clever touch across Kepa and into the bottom left!
45 min +5: … as does Ramsey for his part in the stramash. It was a cynical Bournemouth foul, but it’s Villa who come out of it with two bookings to one!
45 min +4: Smith cynically trips an in-flight Ramsey. Straight into the book. Ramsey isn’t happy, and squares up to Smith. Chests out, a bit of shoving and shouting. Martinez races halfway up the field to have his say, because well, this sort of thing is good fun, isn’t it, and he goes into the book as well.
45 min +2: Digne crosses long from the left. Kamara, unmarked in acres, running down the inside-right channel, meets the cross with a downward header, six yards out. It’s straight at Kepa, who nevertheless kicks away adroitly. He probably shouldn’t have been given the chance of making the save, though; there was plenty of space at the bottom-right corner.
45 min +1: It was the correct decision not to award a penalty. Rogers didn’t move his arm, it wasn’t in an unnatural position, and the players were right on top of each other.
45 min: That’s sparked Bournemouth into life. Semenyo dribbles down the left but runs out of road. Rogers brings the ball away, only for it to clank off Kerkez and back onto the top of his left arm. The fans want a penalty; the players don’t make so much of a fuss. Bournemouth aren’t getting one, either way. There will be six added minutes.
43 min: Out of nowhere, something happens! The ball falls to Asensio on the edge of the Bournemouth D. He doesn’t catch his shot particularly well, but scuffs a weak drive past Kepa, towards the bottom right … and off the base of the post and away.
41 min: Asensio falls on the ball and handles. He’s already been booked, but the referee waves play on. No deliberate movement. Then Kamara snaps at Evanilson’s ankle, missing his attempted connection with the ball. No card-shaped censure here, either. Now it’s the Bournemouth fans’ turn to be unhappy with officialdom.
39 min: Kerkez, who has regularly sent in delicious crosses from his left flank all season, hoicks one straight into the stand behind Martinez’s goal. That kind of sums up this strangely undercooked first half.
38 min: Another set piece, another waste of time.
37 min: … and Ramsey momentarily threatens to tear clear down the left, only for Semenyo to bring him down before he can hit his stride. A free kick, but no booking, perhaps because Semenyo got a bit of the ball before ploughing through his man. That seems a generous interpretation, the Bournemouth player getting away with one, and the Villa fans break into the You’re Not Fit ditty.
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