427 reasons to start taking Bournemouth very, very seriously in Champions League hunt

The stattos have been bigging up Bournemouth for a little while now, with their impressive expected goals record at both ends of the pitch suggesting they could start flying up the Premier League table if only they could start putting their many, many chances away.
Putting a combined nine goals past Newcastle and Nottingham Forest in back-to-back games is as strong a riposte as Bournemouth could possibly have provided to the pervasive feeling that their distinctly unclinical finishing would leave them as Europa League hopefuls at best. Their results recently have been surprising only in that they have suddenly found that killer finish touch out of nowhere; in every other regard, Bournemouth are simply living up to the potential they have shown all season.
It’s less than a month since Chelsea were being touted as the most likely side to push Liverpool to the end of the season (a fair enough shot at the time), three weeks since we started actually taking Nottingham Forest’s top-four credentials seriously (fine), and less than a fortnight since BBC Sport wrote a piece asking if Newcastle should be considered title contenders (close to laughable).
The only thing now potentially standing in the way of Bournemouth being considered legitimate and persuasive Champions League contenders is the name and the badge. Look beyond that, and Andoni Iraola’s side have put together perhaps the strongest case of any of the five sides who currently look to be vying to join Liverpool and Arsenal in the Champions League next season.
READ NEXT: Liverpool continue title cruise, Gunners cling on, Moyes bounces towards safety
Bournemouth are now level on points with Chelsea, just a point behind Newcastle and fourth-placed Manchester City, and have just smashed Forest 5-0 to cut that particular gap down to four points.
The three longest extant Premier League unbeaten streaks are also the longest gathered by any sides over the course of the season: Liverpool 18, Arsenal 13, Bournemouth 11, with the Cherries last losing back on November 23.
Since that defeat at home to Brighton, Bournemouth (with 25 goals) have outscored everyone except Liverpool (33) and Newcastle (28); conceded fewer (9) than anybody, level with Arsenal’s famously tight and solid defence; and accumulated the joint-most points (25) of anybody in the division, matching Liverpool, Arsenal and now Forest.
At the start of this unbeaten run, you could write it off as being partly the result of a kind run of fixtures; it started with Wolves, Tottenham, Ipswich, West Ham and Manchester United, after all.
But their results have only got more and more impressive from there, culminating in their back-to-back demolitions of Newcastle and Forest. In a mini-league of the top seven clubs, Bournemouth (W3 D3 L2) would now be second to Liverpool (W3 D3 L1); they would go top of that table if they were able to beat Arne Slot’s side next weekend.
Even if they lose that game, Bournemouth will have already played all of the sides above them in the table home and away except for Arsenal and Manchester City. That would give them nominally the easiest run of remaining games on paper of any of the 20 Premier League sides, with only five more fixtures still to play against current top-half sides.
The big remaining question mark is whether those two super-clinical performances in front of goal over the past couple of weekends can now become more the rule for Bournemouth rather than the exception – but get even halfway there, and their chances are as good as anyone else’s. Better, even.
MORE PREMIER LEAGUE COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 16 Conclusions from Man City 3-1 Chelsea: Poor Khusanov and ultimately Poor Chelsea
👉 Arsenal ‘picked over Man Utd, Chelsea’ with Arteta ‘closing in’ on top target amid ‘good news’ update
👉 Six Man Utd stars who could join Solskjaer’s Besiktas after Rashford inevitably snubs ‘crazy’ transfer