Aaron Cresswell’s strike salvages draw for West Ham at Bournemouth
Ben Fisher at the Vitality Stadium
Date Published Sat 28 Sep 2019 17.09 BST

After almost a year out through injury, Andriy Yarmolenko is making up for lost time. The winger, who tore an achilles last October, opened the scoring and was the catalyst here as West Ham fought from behind to earn a point through Aaron Cresswell. The draw was sufficient to hoist Manuel Pellegrini’s side up to third in a game dominated by disallowed goals, disillusion and a little disorder.

At the final whistle Pellegrini and his counterpart, Eddie Howe, were embroiled in a touchline contretemps, with the West Ham manager irate at the Bournemouth assistant manager, Jason Tindall, whom he argued was trying to unfairly influence the referee, Stuart Attwell. Howe played down the exchange, insisting he and Pellegrini were discussing VAR calls. “I never talked about the VAR decision,” Pellegrini said. “I talk about the assistant coach of him [Tindall], the complete game with the referee trying to pressurise in every decision. That’s what I complain [about], not about the VAR. I think they don’t need it because they are a good team that play offensive football. I think Eddie has done very good work here – his assistant doesn’t need to do those kinds of things because I don’t think it’s fair for the referee.”

Attwell already had his hands full. Two minutes after Joshua King put the ball in the net, sweeping home to cancel out Yarmolenko’s fine curled opener, Bournemouth were finally able to celebrate. King benefited after the ball dribbled off Nathan Aké’s right leg from a deep Diego Rico cross. As he wheeled away, though, the assistant referee Constantine Hatzidakis raised his flag, only for the VAR, Andrew Madley, to overturn the decision. That was just the beginning of a contentious afternoon, with Aké having a volley ruled out after the offside Dominic Solanke clouded the view of West Ham’s goalkeeper Roberto, who replaced the injured Lukasz Fabianski. Later, Howe seemed stumped at Cresswell getting away with tugging at King’s shirt in the box.

These sides were both licking their wounds after being humbled by League One opposition in midweek, with Burton and Oxford knocking Bournemouth and West Ham respectively out of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday. Saying that, these teams were almost unrecognisable, with Howe and Pellegrini making a combined total of 19 changes from those defeats as they reverted to more tried and tested formulas here. That meant a return to the starting lineup for Yarmolenko, who built on his sweet strike against Manchester United last weekend with another finish full of panache. Felipe Anderson floated a cross towards Sébastien Haller. He eluded Rico to fish the ball out of the air with his right foot before picking out Yarmolenko, who did the rest.

Howe acknowledged the goal gave Bournemouth, sloppy until that point, the impetus they required. They did not trail for long, even if they were made to wait for confirmation of King’s equaliser. Things went from bad to worse for West Ham, with Fabianski forced off with a hip injury and frustrated as Aaron Ramsdale saved well from Anderson following a clever Haller dummy, before Angelo Ogbonna headed over unmarked from a corner.

Thirty seconds after the break, West Ham would come to regret those missed opportunities. Solanke jinked his way past Declan Rice before laying the ball off for King, who nudged the ball to Callum Wilson. Roberto had no chance.

Bournemouth could have been out of sight but Aké’s goal was ruled out and Roberto repelled a fierce Wilson strike. Having survived, West Ham made sure to punish with Cresswell hammering home.