Bournemouth Crush Ten-Man AC Milan to Stay Perfect

"How did we end up here?" asked the tifo unfurled in the North Stand before kick-off. Ninety minutes of driving south-coast rain later, Bournemouth had their answer: third in the Europa League table, nine points from three games, and AC Milan beaten 3–0 by a club playing its first major European campaign.

The night turned in the 27th minute, when Mike Maignan was sent off for violent conduct. Milan were already a goal down. Five minutes later they were two behind, and across the whole evening they never once forced a save.

The win makes Bournemouth the first English side since the 1973–74 season to open a debut major European campaign with three straight victories. It was also their third consecutive win in all competitions.

VAR review sends Kluivert on his way

The first flashpoint came in the sixth minute. A VAR check on a passage involving Evanilson sent referee Vassilis Fotias to the pitchside monitor. The review found that Koni De Winter had grazed an aerial ball with a raised hand at close range, and the penalty was confirmed.

Milan felt the call was overly harsh. Justin Kluivert did not wait for the argument to settle. In the eighth minute, he sent Maignan the wrong way with a low, right-footed penalty into the bottom-right corner.

The goal carried extra weight for the scorer. Milan are the former club of his father, Patrick Kluivert, and this was Justin's first start since returning from an injury layoff. He now has 3 goals in 9 appearances in all competitions this season. He has scored in 3 of Bournemouth's last 6 matches.

Maignan's red card breaks Milan

The incident that settled the contest came as Bournemouth prepared to take a corner. Inside the penalty area, Maignan thrust two hands into the face of Tyler Adams. Fotias showed a straight red card and awarded a second penalty, and Milan protested vehemently.

That left the visitors with ten men and a replacement goalkeeper facing a spot-kick. In the 32nd minute, Marcus Tavernier drove a low finish into the bottom-left corner to make it 2–0.

It was Tavernier's fifth goal of the season in all competitions, from 11 appearances. With an hour still to play and a man down, Milan's task now looked close to impossible.

Bournemouth smother Milan before Adli's free-kick

From that point the game became a long exercise in control. Bournemouth finished with 64% of the ball and 20 shots to Milan's 3. Seven of the home efforts were on target, and the visitors did not manage a single one.

Milan's set pieces offered no relief either. They won four corners to Bournemouth's six and still never threatened. The one criticism of the home side is that so much dominance produced only one more goal. For long spells of the second half the scoreline stayed at 2–0 while the chances piled up.

The third goal finally arrived in the 84th minute. Amine Adli curled a left-footed direct free-kick from 22 yards beyond the wall and into the bottom corner. The home supporters had spent the evening taunting the opposing manager with chants of "it's happened again". By the end, few in the ground would have argued with them.

The evening was scrappy as well as one-sided. Milan collected three yellow cards and Bournemouth two, and the edge from the Maignan incident never fully left the game.

Rose's Bournemouth rise as Milan sink to 24th

The table shows how far the two clubs have moved in opposite directions. Bournemouth sit third with nine points and three wins from three, among the leading group in the league phase. Milan are 24th on three points, with two defeats from their first three matches.

The scale of this run looks larger given how the season began for Marco Rose. His first game in charge ended in defeat at Manchester City in August, a result that also ended Bournemouth's club-record 18-game unbeaten run. Since then his side have found a way to win, and he said his squad would "stay humble".

The English press praised Bournemouth's transitional structure. Milan were portrayed as an unrecognisable shadow of their decorated past.

On the Milan side, the summary was blunt. Ruben Amorim said it was "A difficult night in every aspect". The Italian press condemned the defensive naivety and Maignan's disciplinary meltdown. Several outlets stressed that two defeats from three have put the European campaign in serious trouble.

The warning signs were there four days earlier. Milan let a commanding lead against Atalanta shrink to a nervous 3–2 win, and that fragility was exposed in full here. Hostilities did not end at the final whistle. A brief altercation between the two technical staffs broke out near the tunnel.

For Bournemouth, the question from the North Stand now has a different meaning. They are no longer wondering how they got here. They are wondering how far this can go. For Milan, the next European matches are already about recovery rather than ambition.