Bournemouth – Nottingham Forest: Five Star Smash For The Cherries! (5-0)

Bournemouth smashed five goals past Forest in the encounter of this season’s Premier League overachievers at the Vitality. A hat-trick from Dango Ouattara and goals from Justin Kluivert and Antoine Semenyo sank Forest as the home side romped to a massive 5-0 win. 

Tactical analysis and match report by Gaurav Krishnan.

It doesn’t get any more underdog than this. The 2024/25 Premier League season has had its set of surprises but perhaps no teams have been as surprising as Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth. This season’s overachievers were in action against each other in a top-half-of-the-table clash with Forest in 3rd place and Bournemouth in 7th. However, Forest’s incredible run that finds them in 3rd was met with the sheer brute force of Bournemouth at the Vitality. 

Cast your mind back to last season and Bournemouth finished in 12th place while Forest narrowly avoided relegation by claiming 17th place in the Premier League table. So this then, was a game that was billed to be a clash of the underdogs who have starkly turned the tide of their fortunes this season. 

It hasn’t come without changes. Forest appointed Nuno Espirito Santo in December 2023 and Bournemouth did the same with Andoni Iraola in June 2023. Both managers have had some time to work on their squads and their style of play. But of course, nobody saw these performances and their run this season coming.

Forest have been largely surprising and inventive accompanied by being a hard team to play this season and they only lost four games going . . .