Bournemouth beat Crystal Palace with ease to keep Champions League dreams alive

By month’s end, Andoni Iraola and Oliver Glasner will depart their respective clubs. Having both taken their clubs into uncharted territory, neither’s task is yet complete. Bournemouth’s victory, a game all but won in the first half, was one for the club with their Premier League position as the priority. Bournemouth’s hopes of emulating Palace this season in playing European football for the first time were increased by a deserved, convincing win. The Champions League may even be in reach, Europa League permutations permitting.

Palace played as if something else was on their minds. Perhaps understandably so. On Thursday, in the Conference League semi-final, Selhurst Park will stage the biggest match in 102 years of being home to south London’s Eagles.

Where Iraola and Glasner alight next is as yet unrevealed. The Basque is linked with the managerial meat grinders at Chelsea and Manchester United though also with replacing Glasner. The Austrian’s future is yet more opaque. Public complaints against the decision-making of Palace executives may have cooled certain elite clubs’ interest, despite trophies in Frankfurt and south London. Club suits do not react well to insubordination, as this season’s departures of Ruben Amorim and Enzo Maresca have evidenced.

Tetchy in the technical area at his team’s multiple malfunctions, Glasner may yet sign off with another trophy. His team selection, five changes from Thursday and Shakhtar Donetsk, had made plain his ambitions for the time he has left at his current club.

Those in Palace’s starting lineup had their chance to make their case for a role in a European final, should Leipzig be reached. Few convinced, though there were energy levels to conserve. A rarity for Iraola over three seasons in Dorset has been the near-fully fit squad he could choose from. Less rare, home draws, following five in succession at the Vitality. Hopes of that run ending were heightened by a 10th-minute opener. It owed plenty to casual defending by Jefferson Lerma in deflecting Evanilson’s header from Alex Scott into the goalmouth and Dean Henderson’s delay in clawing the ball only once it had crossed the line.

A regular mantra of Bournemouth’s season, even within a 16-game unbeaten run, the longest in Europe’s top five leagues, has been Iraola bemoaning missed chances, victories downgraded to draws. Misses like Evanilson’s, moments later, have been recurring features.