Late misses cost Bournemouth
Defeat ended Bournemouth's five-game unbeaten run and checked their rise up the table.
The hosts were limited to a few half-chances for the first 80 minutes but then sparked into life, creating a hatful of opportunities once Aston Villa were reduced to 10 men.
Advertisement
Of all their late chances, Bournemouth will especially rue not putting the ball in the net with almost the last kick of the game when Martinez got a crucial touch on Semenyo's header and Matty Cash managed to clear from under his own bar with Daniel Jebbison lurking.
It meant the Cherries stayed 10th, two points behind Brentford in eighth place.
They have lost five of their last seven Premier League home games (W1 D1), with their previous five defeats at the Vitality Stadium coming over a 25-game spell (W13 D7).
Eighth will be enough for a European spot this season if Crystal Palace lose in the FA Cup final to Manchester City.
Bournemouth are at Manchester City in their next match on Tuesday, 20 May, before hosting already-relegated Leicester City on the final day of the season.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NBC Sports
30 minutes ago
- NBC Sports
Reports: Thomas Frank to become new Tottenham Hotspur head coach
After firing Ange Postecoglou it appears Tottenham Hotspur will act very quickly to replace him as multiple reports claim Thomas Frank will become Spurs' new head coach. Reports from The Athletic, Fabrizio Romano and the BBC all claim that Spurs will pay the $13.5 million Brentford want in compensation for their talented manager. The reports also state that personal terms have been agreed and Spurs are expecting to seal the deal for Frank in the next 48 hours. Is this a good fit for Thomas Frank and Spurs? There is no current manager in the Premier League that is more deserving of a chance at a big club playing in the Champions League than Thomas Frank. He's earned this. The Danish coach has brought Brentford up from the Championship with a modest budget and for the last four seasons he's worked wonders to not only keep them in the Premier League but flourish. Frank has improved players such as Ivan Toney, Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa, and countless others, building a dynamic, exciting and robust team. That is exactly the kind of team Spurs want. If Frank is their new manager Spurs will still be as stylish as they were under Postecoglou but they will have more substance and bite. Frank is a demanding but likable character and it will be intriguing to see how many of his stars at Brentford follow him to Spurs. For him the chance to coach in the Champions League at a huge club like Spurs is too good to turn down and he deserves this chance at one of the Premier League's 'big six' clubs. Now it's all about two things: 1) can he keep on overachieving and 2) will he be given several years to build this project at Spurs.
Fox Sports
30 minutes ago
- Fox Sports
Nashville grows from 'not a soccer city' to hosting Club World Cup matches
Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Soccer enthusiasts in Music City once numbered so few that when a fan spotted someone with a soccer bumper sticker, they could probably recognize the car's driver. Now? Don't wave. Odds are it's a stranger. Soccer has grown by leaps and bounds from the immigrants who played at a park decades ago through semi-pro to teams drawing only a couple hundred diehard fans eager to watch. That thirst for soccer helped Nashville go from an outside chance at a Major League Soccer expansion franchise to taking the pitch February 2020 before the biggest crowd to see a match in the state of Tennessee. Now, Nashville SC will be hosting Club World Cup games at its GEODIS Park in June. Ian Ayre, hired in May 2018 as Nashville SC's first CEO and now vice chairman of the MLS team, got a quick dose of skepticism about soccer on his cab ride from the airport to his hotel on his first day in town. "The driver heard my accent and he's like, what are you doing here? I said, 'Oh, I've come here to build a soccer team,' and he started laughing. And he said, 'This isn't a soccer city.' Like that's not going to work here. Like you may as well kind of go home sort of thing. And little by little, we chipped away." Now Nashville has the largest soccer-specific venue in the U.S. The 30,000-seat venue has hosted a Leagues Cup Final with Messi booed by local fans in 2023, and Aston Villa of the Premier League visits in August. Ayre said FIFA President Gianni Infantino had only compliments for what Nashville has created. 'He said to me, 'I think it's incredible not only that you guys built this, but it feels like a truly authentic soccer experience,'' Ayre said. Nashville's soccer pioneers In the 1970s, Jose Fernandez and Fred Eckhardt helped build six soccer fields south of Nashville. Otey Smithson, now a board member of U.S. Adult Soccer, vice president of the Tennessee State Soccer Association's adult programs and a high school boys' soccer coach, grew up playing for Fernandez. "They started the transformation of soccer in Tennessee,' Smithson said. Steve Klein also played on Fernandez's fields before high school, where the soccer team often drew more fans than the football team. After college, he played for the Nashville Metros in 1998 with crowds reaching up to 2,000 for games. Klein remembers the team's owner trying to get Nashville's help building a stadium that never came for the Metros. 'His vision was a little bit earlier than what the city wanted maybe, because obviously now they've got things really rolling,' said Klein, now director of coaching and MLS Next for Pennsylvania Classics. MLS was interested in Nashville in 1999, and Devinder Sandhu asked billionaire John Ingram to invest the $3 million franchise fee. Now the principal owner of Nashville SC, Ingram's group paid $150 million for the Nashville franchise granted in December 2017. Sandhu, who played club soccer at Vanderbilt in the 1970s, helped start local youth programs, the Blues in 1978 and the Metros in 1989. The roster had players like three-time MLS Cup winner Richard Mulrooney and MLS goalkeeper Eddie Carvacho. 'It's a rocket ship that had been sitting on the launching pad for 70 years,' Sandhu said of the sport's explosive growth in Nashville. Soccer boom The roots kept growing in 1976 when the Tennessee State Soccer Association opened. High schools followed with sanctioned championships in 1986-87. When Hans Hobson was hired as a coach for the Olympic developmental team, practices were held at the Metros' field next to a prison. Hobson had to reassure parents it was safe to practice there. 'You were willing to take whatever,' Hobson said. "We've kind of gotten kind of snobby now. ... 'Why are we playing on this field? It's ratty, it doesn't have enough grass.' When we were growing up, we'd take whatever we could get.' Now the executive director of the state soccer association, Hobson says Tennessee had approximately 35,000 registered players when he was hired about 14 years ago. Now? That's the number for the Nashville area alone, not counting independent groups or adults. National team impact USA Soccer also helped with the U.S. women first playing in Nashville at Nissan Stadium, home to the NFL's Tennessee Titans, in 2004. They are 5-0-1 all-time in Nashville with their latest game here in February 2023 at GEODIS Park. The U.S. men's national team didn't play in Nashville until 2009 and are 5-2-2 all-time. Rain led fans to stand for that 2009 game featuring a then-19-year-old Jozy Altidore and again through a 2011 match. Clay Trainum, founder of the Nashville Soccer Archives, worked as a press officer for the U.S. team for the 2011 match against Paraguay. He said fans standing alerted people nationally to the local interest in soccer. 'I think that that kind of queued off, whether subconsciously in folks' heads, 'If we can do this right, we can find a community that will support this team,'' Trainum said. National connections Cindy Parlow Cone, president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, is a native of Memphis claimed by Nashville soccer folks as one of their own. Mulrooney coaches the Memphis men's soccer team, while Stanford coach Jeremy Gunn played for the Metros in 1998. Klein coached U.S. national team star Christian Pulisic both with the Pennsylvania Classics and the U.S. youth national team. 'The tentacles have grown so much, and it's amazing to see where it started,' Smithson said. Southern-style approach Tailgating is key piece of American-style football in the South, and that's become a tradition for Nashville SC and the Backline featuring seven different supporters' groups now. Stephen Robinson, president of the Roadies' group between 2020 and 2023, recalls getting permission to tailgate with a friend in the parking lot at Vanderbilt University for Nashville SC games. Now he commutes to Nashville from Washington D.C. for games with people he considers family. 'There's way more than two people nowadays, but you get that sense of just being a part of something,' Robinson said. They do more than just party before matches and chant and sing through games. The Roadies, a non-profit group, help fund local youth soccer through Soccer for the Nations in an outreach started when one of their founders, Kyle Mountsier, took soccer balls to Haiti in 2014. 'We're the dumb idiots that want to make a city better," said Newton Dominey, a Roadies founder and original president in 2014. Southern company Nashville is hardly alone among Southern locales embracing soccer culture. In North Carolina, the North Carolina Courage in the National Women's Soccer League has an enthusiastic fan base. Charlotte FC, which joined Major League Soccer in 2022, averaged 33,383 fans per game last year. The Southern love of soccer extends beyond the pro teams. The University of North Carolina women's soccer team has won a staggering 23 national championships and regularly ranks in the top 10 in average home attendance. What's next Nashville missed out on the 2026 World Cup with the Titans building an enclosed stadium, taking the only venue big enough to host Cup matches off the market. That opens in 2027, and yes, Nashville wants the 2031 Women's World Cup with Ayre helping recruit future events. Add to that a NWSL team to the list. Ron Deal, among the founders of the Nashville Roadies' supporters group, is among those confident that is coming: 'We will have a professional women's soccer team. ... I'm disappointed it hasn't happened yet." ___ AP Soccer Writer Anne M. Peterson contributed. ___ AP soccer: recommended in this topic
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tottenham closing in on Brentford's Frank in search for new manager
Tottenham are closing in on Brentford boss Thomas Frank (JUSTIN TALLIS) Brentford manager Thomas Frank is the man Tottenham have targeted to replace Ange Postecoglou, according to multiple reports on Monday. Postecoglou was dismissed after two seasons in charge on Friday despite ending Spurs' 17-year trophy drought by winning the Europa League last month. Advertisement Frank, who has been in charge of the Bees since 2018, led Brentford back to the top flight in 2021 after an absence of 74 years and has established the west London club in the Premier League. Hiring the Dane, whose contract runs until 2027, would cost Spurs around £10 million ($14 million) in compensation. The BBC reported that a formal approach from Tottenham is expected in the coming days. Spurs will play in the Champions League next season thanks to their Europa League success in Bilbao, where they Manchester United 1-0. However, Postecoglou paid the price for a miserable Premier League season as Tottenham finished 17th after losing 22 of their 38 games. Advertisement Frank began his coaching career in the youth set-up of the Danish national team before a three-year stint at Brondby. He initially joined Brentford as an assistant coach before stepping to replace Dean Smith, when he left to join Aston Villa. After losing out in the 2020 Championship play-off final, Brentford bounced back to win promotion through the play-offs a year later. Since then, Frank has established the Bees as a competitive Premier League force recording 13th, ninth, 16th and 10th-place finishes despite consistently selling some of his best players. Bryan Mbeumo is set to become the latest big-money departure from Brentford, with Manchester United interested in the Cameroon international, who scored 20 Premier League goals last season. However, Frank would reportedly be keen to take Mbeumo with him to north London should his move to Tottenham be finalised. kca/jw/ea
