Bournemouth (United Kingdom) (AFP) – Bournemouth snatched a dramatic 2-1 win over Crystal Palace as Junior Stanislas’s last-gasp penalty sealed the points at Dean Court on Monday.
Eddie Howe’s side took an early lead through David Brooks before Patrick Van Aanholt bagged a controversial second-half equaliser for Palace.
Van Aanholt looked well offside when he fired home, but Bournemouth hit back to maintain their impressive start to the season.
With three minutes left, substitute Stanislas coolly converted a penalty awarded after Mamadou Sakho elbowed Jefferson Lerma.
Bournemouth’s fourth win of the season lifted them to seventh place in the Premier League.
It was the Cherries’ first home league win against Palace since November 1988.
Palace remain in mid-table after losing for the fourth time this term.
After a 4-0 thrashing at Burnley last weekend, Bournemouth boss Howe had called for his players to go “back to basics”.
Howe’s message seemed to have got through as Bournemouth powered into the lead after five minutes.
Having made a well-timed run into the Palace area, Callum Wilson turned sharply and laid off for Brooks, who produced a superb strike that rattled off the crossbar and into the net.
It was Brooks’ first goal for Bournemouth since the young Wales winger arrived from Sheffield United in the close-season.
Palace threatened an immediate response when Luka Milivojevic’s free-kick took a deflection off the Bournemouth wall and almost crept in at the near post.
Wilson shot into the side-netting under pressure from Palace defender Sakho, while Steve Cook headed straight at goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey from Brooks’ cross.
Despite dominating the first half, Bournemouth were pegged back in dubious circumstances in the 55th minute.
Wilfried Zaha slipped a pass to Van Aanholt in the Bournemouth area and, although the Palace defender was clearly offside, the flagged stayed down.
Van Aanholt took full advantage, thumping a blistering drive past Asmir Begovic into the roof of the net for his second goal of the season.
Hodgson’s team shouted for a penalty when Andros Townsend crossed to Jordan Ayew and the Palace striker went down under pressure from Nathan Ake, but referee Mike Dean waved play on.
Dean would still have a part to play as he spotted Sakho when he caught Lerma in the face with a needless elbow in the 87th minute.
Stanislas stepped up to take the penalty and dinked it down the middle to score with his first touch after coming off the bench.
