Bournemouth’s staggering run shows no signs of stopping as they racked up an eighth successive victory, winning 2-1 away at Ipswich.
The Cherries took an early lead at Portman Road when home goalkeeper Christian Walton had his pocket picked by Evanilson, who robbed him of the ball and tapped into the empty net as he netted for a fifth straight league match.
A combination of dogged defending and the legs of Walton denied Bournemouth a second shortly after. It was a half the visitors bossed, with Justin Kluivert drawing a good save from Walton just before the interval.
Marco Rose’s side picked up where they left off after the break, with Ryan Christie’s strike going in off the unfortunate Leif Davis.
Chances came and went for Bournemouth to increase their lead before Ipswich were given an unexpected route back into the game when Lewis Cook felled Abdoul Ouattara inside the penalty area.
Jack Clarke stepped up the halve the arrears and give Ipswich hope, but Bournemouth held on for a deserved win.
Jubilant Rose said post-match: “I am happy we won this game so we could keep up our run going. We are doing many things the right way as a team. We stick together, have good balance in our game, defend together, suffer, and press well. That is why we have eight wins in a row.
“It’s good that we see our effort gets rewarded [with pressing]. I am happy the lads continue going front foot and forward. At 2-1 it got difficult for us but we did it together. These kind of things we missed in the first five games where we played well but gave points away. Right now we do the small stuff in the right direction and I’m proud of the lads.”
Beaten Ipswich chief Gary O’Neil reflected: “I think if you give the ball to the opposition number nine twice in the Premier League, it’s going to be a difficult afternoon for you. The Premier League is ruthless and if you give teams those chances, they will take them.
“We could easily have turned today into a point. It’s the Premier League and you’re going to lose matches, but apart from the Manchester United game, we could have taken points from all our games. So we have to make better decisions and we’ll be competitive every week.
“When the game was in flow, we defended well, pressed well and looked after the ball well. But after those mistakes, we didn’t recover. So we were a little bit short of taking the points. But I’m still proud of the players and where we are at after 10 games.”
