Bournemouth

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Former Bournemouth defender Joe Partington has praised Evanilson's "exceptional" performances against Sturm Graz in the Europa League and Sunderland in the Premier League, with the striker netting in back-to-back games.

The 27-year-old has scored three goals and contributed four assists across nine appearances this season.

Speaking on BBC Radio Solent's Cherries Unpicked podcast about Evanilson's goal and assist, which helped Marco Rose's side secure their first Premier League win of the season, Partington said: "He is always pretty good, but I would say he was exceptional.

"He is one of those players that never really gets total credit unless he scores because he is a striker, so it was nice to see him get an assist and then put his goal away.

"His overall play was brilliant, especially when he contributed to Kevin Danso being sent off early in the game by chasing somewhat of a lost cause.

"I don't think we gave enough credit to the header he scored against Sturm Graz midweek because that was exceptional as well. It feels like he is in a real nice rhythm at the moment.

"Regardless of where he plays, I feel he is pretty central to Marco Rose's plans this season - and so he should be because he was by far and away the best player on the pitch against Sunderland."

On Evanilson's neat 48th-minute finish, Partington added: "It was smooth. I think people call it 'flow state' when you find yourself in a rhythm where you're just totally in control of what you're doing.

"He looked balanced, his first touch was where he wanted it to be - he needed to get on the other side of the defenders and he managed to use his body to do that. It just all came together at the right time for him.

"The only question mark I've got around him being a number nine is whether he has that selfishness to score goals. There is no way Brett Pitman would have squared that ball to Marcus Tavernier in the fifth minute.

"Evanilson doesn't quite have that cutting edge. I would say it's maybe the reason why he doesn't have as many goals to his name, but he is still a brilliant player."

Listen to the full podcast on BBC Sounds

We asked for your thoughts after Sunday's Premier League game between Bournemouth and Sunderland.

Here are some of your comments:

Bournemouth fans

Malcolm: Another good team performance following on from the victory over Sturm Graz on Thursday. Evanilson led the line superbly with an assist and a goal as well as his tireless workrate. The defence looked solid, not allowing Sunderland any clear-cut chances. Got to feel for the Sunderland fans making that long journey and not seeing a performance from their team.

Mikeh: Much improved against a woeful Sunderland, but missed chances are a bit concerning. Evanilson and Marcus Tavernier were terrific. Bring on Milan!

Gary: Marco Rose, like Andoni Iraola, needs time for the team to understand his preferred style of play. It will come good for him, I am sure. Evanilson could be central to Rose's style of play. I hope he is showing signs of doing so with his goals in recent games.

J: Bournemouth are getting better but in January they need to buy at least two more defenders. The squad should have been increased before the season started to take into account possible injuries and the extra matches in Europe.

Sunderland fans

Stephen: The Bournemouth game has demonstrated the club needs a massive rethink - we are sleepwalking into a terrible season. Bournemouth, who also played on Thursday, ran rings around us and we had no answers.

Denise: We've lost games and played well. The Bournemouth game was different, we were absolute rubbish. I know a single bad performance does not define our overall skill level and every player has matches where nothing clicks, but we are consistently making the same mistakes and don't appear to be learning from them.

Kevin: The club need to decide now - European jollies or Premier League survival. Field teams accordingly. I prefer Premier League survival - we need to build on last year.

Jura: Absolutely embarrassing. We were ragged, lethargic, sloppy, disorganised. If we don't find answers soon, it's Championship football for us next season.

Bournemouth boss Marco Rose is finally up and running in the Premier League after beating Sunderland 2-0.

BBC Radio Solent's Jordan Clark and former Cherries defender Joe Partington assess the performance on the latest episode of Cherries Unpicked.

Listen below or on BBC Sounds here - and don't forget to subscribe to get each episode into your My Sounds feed.

Explore all Bournemouth content on BBC Sounds

Bournemouth could ask for more than £100m for English midfielder Alex Scott, 23, who is attracting interest from Chelsea and Liverpool. (Football Insider), external

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Bournemouth boss Marco Rose, speaking to Sky Sports: "Congrats to everyone at the club, to the lads, to our fans. They were really patient the last couple of weeks, even [though] we didn't get the points out of the game. Important win.

"We talked about it in the half-time that we stick to the plan, nothing changed, we stayed focus, we stay intense, we move them, we tried to find the game and to try and score the second goal. Everything today we forced with our intensity, even the red card. We were quite sharp in these kinds of moments and that's why we have a clean sheet, we scored two goals and we won the game.

"We were quite dominant, we were intense. I felt even in the locker room and yesterday in training that we wanted to force this win with everything we have. It's a mentality."

Did you know?

• Bournemouth have lost just one of their last 15 home games across all competitions (W6 D8), with this the first time since January that they've won successive matches at the Vitaly Stadium.

• Bournemouth's Marcus Tavernier struck his 22nd Premier League goal in this match with 14 of those now coming as match openers – it's the highest percentage of any player to score 20+ goals in competition history in terms of strikes that have come as match openers (64%).

Listen to more match reaction from James Hill below or on BBC Sounds

Chris McKenna
BBC Sport journalist

Image source, Getty Images

Marcus Tavernier is a tone setter for this Bournemouth team this season.

The Englishman has now scored four goals this season – he is their top scorer – and three of them have been openers in games.

This time it helped lead to a first league victory which will help build confidence in Marco Rose's team.

They have had some positive performances but were thrashed last week at Chelsea for their third defeat of the season which meant they needed to respond here.

They were obviously helped by Sunderland's calamity defending but with games against Manchester United, Aston Villa and Leeds United to come in the Premier League with a European date with Italian giants AC Milan before that run, it was a timely victory to lift them up the table.

If Tavernier and Evanilson can keep up this form then they will be a real challenge for those teams in the next few weeks.

Whether you were at the game or following from elsewhere, we want to know what you learned.

Have your say on Bournemouth's performance

What did you make of Sunderland's display?

Reaction and analysis to follow - and come back on Monday for a selection of your replies.

There are five games in the Premier League on Saturday and BBC Sport will bring you every moment.

• Bournemouth v Sunderland

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Both these teams play in Europe on Thursday but neither of them are in great form.

Sunderland have lost three in a row, while Bournemouth have not won in the league so far this season.

The Cherries have been a team who have got in front but let things slip a few times this season but, against Chelsea, they went 2-0 down right from kick-off, then did it again with their third goal inside the first few seconds of the second half.

Bournemouth boss Marco Rose had probably told his players "don't do anything stupid" at the break, so he must have been absolutely livid at that.

They really need a positive result here but so do Sunderland. It's going to be close, and I can't pick a winner.

Sutton's prediction: 1-1

Read the full predictions and have your say here

Paul Birch
BBC Sport journalist

After successful Thursday night exploits in Europe, Bournemouth and Sunderland face off hoping to find some domestic form after both making indifferent starts to the season. BBC Sport takes a look at some of the key themes going into Sunday's fixture.

"Three points after six games. We need a reaction, we need a turnaround, quite soon," Bournemouth's head coach Marco Rose said after their 5-1 loss at Chelsea.

If only the Cherries could channel their early form in Europe into the bread and butter of the Premier League. Thursday's historic victory over Sturm Graz made them the first English team to win their first two matches in a major European competition since Bolton Wanderers in the 2005-06 Uefa Cup.

The damaging defeat by Chelsea marked the first time they had lost consecutive league games since last December and stretched their winless start to the season to six matches.

Only in 1994-95 in the third tier (eight games) and the 2023-24 top-flight season (nine games) have they endured a longer winless start to a league campaign.

Such is the quirk of statistics that Bournemouth actually had a greater xG of 1.46 compared to Chelsea's 1.08 yet were still beaten 5-1 at Stamford Bridge.

They've shipped a joint top-flight high of 13 goals this season despite facing the joint lowest amount of shots. It the fewest shots faced in the opening six games of a Premier League season without recording a win since records were kept in 2003-04.

With just three draws to show for their exploits this season they are actually eight points worse off than they were at this stage 12 months ago, the joint most of any club along with fellow winless side Tottenham.

With a run of nine games in 29 days under way Rose, is going to need to pick up league wins fast.

After tricky run, Sunderland looking to pick up points

Like opponents Bournemouth, Sunderland have had a tricky start to their domestic campaign but have also picked up two morale-boosting victories in Europe.

One win from their opening six top-flight matches means they sit just one place above the Cherries in 17th, and they are seven points down on the tally of 11 they had at the same stage of last season.

Three successive league defeats marks their joint worst run under head coach Regis le Bris. Heavy mitigation does come from the fact that those matches have pitted them against the top three sides in the table, but they will be keen to kick the losing habit.

The Black Cats will also need to find a way of shutting up shop away from home given they have now gone nine games on the road without a clean sheet.

Like Bournemouth they have begun a punishing run of nine games in less than a month as their European commitments begin to bite.

The good news is that they boast a great record against Sunday's opponents having only lost two of their 12 encounters with the Cherries.

Sunderland have also won on four out of their six visits to Bournemouth, with their only defeat there coming in the top flight back in 2015.

Mark Mitchener
BBC Sport senior journalist

Image source, Getty Images

It felt like one of the biggest nights in Bournemouth's history, so it felt appropriate that so many were there to see it.

With the filled-in north-west and south-east corners available for the first time, the attendance figure of 12,070 against Sturm Graz was easily Bournemouth's highest of the 21st Century.

Dean Court, the Cherries' home since 1910, was reconfigured completely in 2001, with all the existing stands demolished and the pitch turned through 90 degrees.

But even with the addition of the "temporary" Ted MacDougall Stand, which has been in place since 2013, its capacity had only been a shade over 11,000 until Thursday.

To find a bigger attendance than the Sturm Graz game, we have to go back to February 1989, when Manchester United were the visitors for an FA Cup fifth-round tie.

Harry Redknapp's side battled to a 1-1 draw in front of a capacity crowd of 12,500 at the "old" Dean Court, while the replay drew 52,422 to Old Trafford, which interestingly was United's highest home attendance for several years until their own capacity was increased.

The only Bournemouth home game since 1989 which threatened to topple that figure was the final match of the 1994-95 season, when Shrewsbury were beaten 3-0 to complete the Cherries' first "Great Escape", avoiding relegation from Division Two (now League One) - having only had nine points by Christmas.

The official attendance declared that night was 10,747, although anecdotally, the true figure was rumoured to be up to a couple of thousand more, with the terraces absolutely jam-packed.

However, despite Bournemouth's plans to further increase Vitality Stadium's capacity next season to about 20,000 with a massive new South Stand, the largest home attendance in the club's history is unlikely to be topped any time soon.

That was also for an FA Cup tie against Manchester United, back in 1957, when an unfathomable 28,799 packed into Dean Court for a quarter-final which United won 2-1.

Listen to more reaction from John Williams on the Cherries' European night on BBC Sounds

We asked for your thoughts after Thursday's Europa League game between Bournemouth and Sturm Graz.

Here are some of your comments:

Paul: Stunning night on and off the pitch. On the playing side, an excellent performance and result. It was so good to see fringe players come in and all put in notable performances - and off the pitch, the efforts the club put in to mark the occasion was beautifully reflected in a wonderful atmosphere in the stadium. Proud Cherry!

Peter: Superb. Dreamland continues with our unbelievable progress.

Marty: Historic and outstanding game and win. Now, let's get our minds towards Sunderland and start working our way out of relegation trouble.

Image source, Getty Images

Michael: Hopefully, this wonderful victory will be the start of a winning streak to move us up the Premier League table. Well played, Cherries. It was a great performance for the supporters as well as Bill Foley.

Paul: That was more like it. A controlled performance with everyone doing their job well. An important goal for Evanilson and it was great to get Alvaro Rodriguez on the scoresheet at the end. Great start to a huge couple of weeks for the club.

Drew: Looked class from start to finish - this Bournemouth squad look like they belong in the Europa League.

Keifer MacDonald
BBC Sport journalist

Image source, Reuters

It was a night that always seemed destined to produce a fairytale storyline, such has been the nature of Bournemouth's rise since 2008.

At Wednesday's pre-match news conference, defender Adam Smith - the club's longest-serving player after initially joining on loan from Tottenham in 2011 - admitted he would never have imagined captaining the Cherries in Europe.

But there was more to come for Smith. The right-back earned his own piece of history by providing the assist for Bournemouth's first European goal on home soil, with Evanilson heading his cross home late in the first half.

"It's been a long time coming. The fans were up for it, the players were up for it, so we are very happy," Smith told TNT Sports.

"We had a chat with each other and we got a reaction. That's an AFC [Bournemouth] performance right there."

Since making his move from Spurs permanent in 2014, Smith has made more than 430 appearances for the Cherries.

In that time, the 35-year-old has helped Bournemouth secure three promotions, two of which have taken them to the Premier League.

When he was replaced by James Hill midway through the second half, the home supporters rose to their feet and chanted Smith's name as he left the field.

"He's an example to everyone of what hard work looks like and the rewards that you get, even towards the latter stages of your career," added Joel Ward.

"He's extremely professional, and he fully deserves the success he's getting now. Nights like this are what you live for. To walk out captaining that side is emotional and makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck."

Read more on Bournemouth's European heroics here

After a historic night at Vitality Stadium, BBC Radio Solent's Jordan Clark was alongside former Bournemouth defender Joe Partington to dissect the 3-0 win over Sturm Graz.

Listen below or on BBC Sounds here - and don't forget to subscribe to get each episode into your My Sounds feed.

Explore all Bournemouth content on BBC Sounds

Liverpool are frontrunners to sign Bournemouth midfielder Alex Scott, who is valued at £100m. (Mail - subscription required), external

Meanwhile, Manchester United are monitoring Bournemouth left-back Adrien Truffert. (Football Insider), external

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Club captain Adam Smith spoke to TNT Sports after Bournemouth's victory against Sturm Graz: "It has been a long time coming. The fans were up for it, the players were up for it so we're very happy with the performance."

On Evanilson's header: "It wasn't my best cross but I put it in an area, what a finish from him and I think we deserved that little bit of luck. From there on we went on to win the game but in the second half we got a little bit tired but the quality that came off the bench is great and we look forward to Sunday now.

"It's a great header, he deserved it because he has worked very hard this season and many more to come from him."

On whether this result could be a springboard: "It was very disappointing at the weekend [defeat against Chelsea], we let ourselves down as players. We had a chat with each other, we got a reaction today. That's an AFC Bournemouth performance right there and the week's not done. We've got a massive one on Sunday against Sunderland and we need to get another three points."

Midfielder Lewis Cook also spoke to TNT Sports: "I thought the performance was top. It was a special night, you could feel that before the game, when were lining up as players. The atmosphere was great. It was a top performance, we bounced back from the weekend and it was something we can be very proud of."

On starting with two wins from two in the Europa League: "It is all new to us. All I know is that when you win game sit is good. Hopefully we can use the momentum and carry on."

Listen to more match reaction from Lewis Cook below or on BBC Sounds here

Marco Rose spoke to TNT Sports after Bournemouth's victory against Sturm Graz: "Performance-wise, clean sheet, attitude, effort - a deserved win and now we have to continue, have to get consistent in these things and Sunderland is the next challenge."

On what pleased him most: "I believe in this team and know they are always confident despite a difficult situation. The squad is working, everyone is keen to play, everyone deserves to play and its good for us for the busy weeks to have a competitive squad."

On how Bournemouth can build on this: "If we stick together and play like this and we have our fans then we are hard to play and it's hard to beat us. That's what we should take into the next game."

Did you know?

• Bournemouth are the first English team to win their first two matches in major European competition since Bolton Wanderers in the 2005-06 UEFA Cup.

• Rayan is the first player under the age of 21 to score in an English club's first two major European matches since an 18-year-old Jimmy Greaves for Chelsea in 1958.

Keifer MacDonald
BBC Sport journalist

Image source, Getty Images

It was a night no Bournemouth supporter will forget.

Less than 20 years after completing one of the greatest escapes in English Football League history following a 17-point deduction, the Cherries were celebrating back-to-back wins in the Europa League.

It was little wonder there was no rush for supporters to leave their seats after the final whistle, with the game, which attracted the highest attendance in the stadium's history, proving to be one of the hottest tickets in town.

It was a night filled with heartwarming moments. First, the club's longest-serving player, Adam Smith, who initially joined the Cherries in 2011 when they were a League One side, provided the cross for Evanilson to head home the opener after a dominant first-half performance from Marco Rose's side.

After offering little threat in the first half, the visitors, who were competing in the Champions League as recently as 2024, looked determined to spoil the party as they began to pepper Petrovic's goal.

It would have been easy for Bournemouth to crack under the pressure of the occasion, particularly given their tendency to throw away leads in the Premier League this season.

But this historic night had a fairytale ending, as Bournemouth, backed by the firepower from their bench - another sign of how far the club has come since the dark days of 2008 - powered to victory, ensuring the 12,000 supporters watching on home soil would have a night to remember.

If the fans thought this would never be topped, they might want to wait until AC Milan visit the south coast next week.

Whether you were at the game or following from elsewhere, we want to know what you learned.

Get in touch with your views here

Come back to this page on Friday to find a selection of your replies