Bournemouth close in on European place with crucial win at Fulham

Bournemouth strengthened their grip on a European place and extended their extraordinary unbeaten run to 16 games with a 1-0 victory at Fulham, in which both teams had a player sent off.

Brazilian winger Rayan netted his fifth goal since joining in January early in the second half to keep Bournemouth sixth in the Premier League, three points behind Aston Villa and six above ninth-placed Chelsea with two games remaining.

Bournemouth's Ryan Christie was shown a straight red card following a VAR check late in the first half for his reckless challenge on Timothy Castagne, but Fulham centre-back Joachim Andersen suffered the same fate 10 minutes later for his two-footed tackle on Adrien Truffert. Neither could have any complaints over the decisions, although referee Andrew Madley initially showed them both yellow cards.

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Fulham had threatened to make their brief extra-man advantage count with Sasa Lukic's shot parried before Andersen's towering header hit the top of the crossbar, with his dismissal a key moment in Bournemouth's important win.

Junior Kroupi struck the woodwork for the visitors shortly after the break and soon Rayan was celebrating his goal from outside the area that deflected in off Calvin Bassey and past goalkeeper Bernd Leno.

Fulham, with their European hopes all but over, have now failed to score in six of their last eight league games and their problems in attack were clear to see, not aided by an injury to substitute striker Raul Jimenez during the warm-up.