AFC Bournemouth, on the back of five consecutive victories, travelled to Norwich City on Saturday night.
The home side had learned that they had won promotion to the Premier League whilst preparing for the game at the team hotel ahead of kick-off.
Jonathan Woodgate opted to make no changes once again as his settled side have looked confident in the 4-2-3-1 that had been abandoned under former manager Jason Tindall.
With Jefferson Lerma and Ben Pearson, with Philip Billing at the point of the midfield trio, the Cherries have looked solid, allowing for the flair players of Arnaut Danjuma, David Brooks and/or Junior Stanislas to create around the hard-working Dominic Solanke.
This game however turned on a sending off for the home side, prior to that, Norwich demonstrated why they were top of the league, with work-rate, a high press, fast tempo, quick passing and sublime link-up play. Once down to ten men however they dropped deeper and deeper, finding themselves penned in, as the Cherries probed away.
During the second half, some Lloyd Kelly, first with the assist for Sam Surridge and then some Danjumagic unlocked the door, before Kelly himself scoring his first goal in Cherries colours secured the three points.
After the game, Woodgate told Sky Sports…
“Full credit to the lads, that’s six wins on the spin now and one against Norwich, who are a really top team. We deserved it. They went down to 10 men and we had to break them down, which is not easy at times. I made the right substitution at half time and we ended up winning 3-1.
“It’s big. We’ve got another game against Millwall and we know that’s going to be a difficult game. The lads are confident at the minute and it’s important we don’t get complacent because we know what this league is like.”
Man of the match against Norwich
Danjuma
Kelly
Pearson
Someone else
Up the Cherriesssss ๐ pic.twitter.com/aHvQQI2LwR
— AFC Bournemouth ๐ (@afcbournemouth) April 17, 2021
"Lloyd is a big help to me and my performances"@ArnautDanjuma was full of โฅ๏ธ for @lloydkelly4 after the pair caused chaos down the left for Norwich
Danjuma told @jordanclarkcouk his goal tonight was one of his best ๐๐ #afcb ๐ pic.twitter.com/DE5Ipj11bk
— BBC Radio Solent Sport (@solentsport) April 17, 2021
A ๐๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฎ๐น goal ๐
A ๐๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฎ๐น moment โค๏ธ๏ธ
A first #afcb goal for @lloydkelly4 ๐ฅ pic.twitter.com/x29i7hyycu
— AFC Bournemouth ๐ (@afcbournemouth) April 17, 2021
Written by thegazzyb
All I can say is that this season we have played the probable runaway champions twice and beaten them twice. That proves that we are good enough to achieve promotion but obviously we previously unnecessarily gave ourselves a mountain to climb.
I really canโt see us not making the playoffs at least now though and in all probability, we will do so in decent form.
It is about to get very exciting I feel. Bring it on !!!
Thatโs what weโre all fans for, isnโt it?
"We're not in the play-offs yet. Full credit to the lads, that's six wins now and Norwich are a top team."
Jonathan Woodgate doesn't want his players losing focus after the 3-1 win at Norwich ๐๐ #afcb ๐ https://t.co/IXiyIonTWU pic.twitter.com/wNEWZDqpC9
— BBC Radio Solent Sport (@solentsport) April 17, 2021
Proud moment making my 350th league appearance for the club. Big win to make it more enjoyable also. ๐๐น pic.twitter.com/xjAucYGX00
— Steve Cook (@SteveCook28) April 17, 2021
A must win game…losing was not an option and although the red card changed the game take nothing away from the performance. Well done @NorwichCityFC on promotion back to the Prem. Hope to see you again soon ๐๐ฝ ๐ pic.twitter.com/4rLY1gfxlz
— Arnaut Danjuma (@ArnautDanjuma) April 17, 2021
Am I too wild to dream of an automatic spot as Watford still have to play Millwall, Swansea, Brentford and Norwich…
Still mathematically possible to catch them…