Fulham's Alex Iwobi, left, celebrates after scoring the opening goal during the English Premier League match between Fulham and Wolverhampton Wanderers at Craven Cottage stadium in London, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (Zac Goodwin/PA via AP)
Manchester City, Arsenal, and now Tottenham.
The list of top Premier League teams beaten at Bournemouth this season is growing.
Dean Huijsen took advantage of Tottenham’s weakness at set pieces to head home a 17th-minute winner in Bournemouth’s 1-0 victory on Thursday.
After the game, some Spurs fans appeared to vent their frustration at manager Ange Postecoglou when he went over to the away contingent following his team’s insipid display.
“They are pretty disappointed, rightly so, and I got some pretty direct feedback as to how we are going,” the Australian coach said, “and that’s fair enough.”
Bournemouth climbed to ninth — a point and a place above Tottenham in the standings — and underlined its penchant for surprising high-profile visitors to Vitality Stadium.
Man City’s remarkable four-game losing run in the Premier League started with a 2-1 defeat at Bournemouth, while fellow title contender Arsenal’s first loss of the season also came at the Vitality, 2-0 on Oct. 19.
This was Spurs’ sixth defeat of the campaign. They now have as many wins as losses, highlighting the inconsistency blighting their season, and their seven away results so far make remarkable reading: aside from a 3-0 win at Manchester United and a 4-0 thrashing of Man City, Tottenham has lost four and drawn the other at relegation candidate Leicester.
“We’ve got to get out of this space we’re in at the moment where we’re just not able to get a real grip on our season,” Postecoglou said.
An inability to defend set plays continues to hurt Postecoglou’s team. A week after Roma scored twice from them in a 2-2 draw in the Europa League, Huijsen roamed free in the area at a corner and headed home unmarked.
Postecoglou said in May said he “wasn’t interested” about his side’s fallibility while defending set pieces, and said after losing 1-0 to Arsenal in September — after a goal from Gabriel at a corner — that “it’s my burden to carry and I’m happy to do that.”
“We started well and conceded a really poor goal,” Postecoglou said after the Bournemouth game. “It’s a difficult place to come when giving the opposition the opportunity to play in the manner they want.”
IWOBI DOUBLE
Alex Iwobi scored goals early and late in the game to lead Fulham to a 3-1 win over Brighton.
The Nigeria winger intercepted a stray pass out from the back by Brighton goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen and slotted into an unguarded net for the opener in the fourth minute and curled home Fulham’s clinching goal in the 87th.
Carlos Baleba equalized for Brighton in the 56th before Brighton midfielder Matt O’Riley – a former Fulham academy player – deflected the ball into his own net from a corner to put the home side back in front.
Fulham climbed to sixth in the standings, a point and a place behind Brighton.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
By STEVE DOUGLAS
AP Sports Writer
This post was last modified on 12/05/2024 4:07 pm
