EPL

Premier League first 'sounds beautiful' to history-making Kluivert

By Sports Desk November 30, 2024

Bournemouth's hat-trick hero Justin Kluivert was thrilled to have made Premier League history in Saturday's 4-2 win over Wolves.

Kluivert became the first player to score three penalties in a single Premier League match.

The Dutchman netted in the third, 18th and 74th minutes at Molineux, where Milos Kerkez was also on target for the Cherries.

All of Bournemouth's penalties were won by Evanilson, who became the first player to win three spot-kicks in one game in the Premier League.

"That sounds beautiful. To go in the history books, that's amazing, super happy with it," Kluivert told Premier League Productions."

Kluivert has been directly involved in six goals (five goals, one assist) in his last six games for Bournemouth, while he netted his first hat-trick in all club competitions since doing so for Ajax against Roda in November 2017.

"I train them [the penalties]," he added.

"We try some stuff, the first one I stop, and look at the keeper, what is he doing? I switch it up for the second one. Then the third, he doesn't know what I'm going to do. I waited and he chose for me. Easy as that.

"We have shown we can beat a lot of teams in this league."

The victory lifted Bournemouth to 11th in the Premier League table, while Wolves dropped into the relegation zone on goal difference.

And Gary O'Neil was disappointed with the level of performance from his players.

"Not good enough. It was well below the level we've managed to reach in the last four," he told Premier League Productions.

"We made it really difficult with the errors and the game became a chase.

"The start of the game, the first goal we concede, it's a big setback. We gave away two back passes and we didn't need to play backwards in those moments.

"We expect better than that. We should be able to make simple passes and good decisions with the ball. Today it snowballed on us. We kept on giving chances and making bad decisions."

Wolves did get themselves level after conceding the first goal through Jorgen Stand Larsen, while the Norwegian also halved Bournemouth's lead in the second half when he doubled his tally.

"We did keep fighting and did come back. But we again found a way to shoot ourselves in the foot with the fourth goal," said O'Neil.

"The lads were very well-prepared for what Bournemouth were going to ask. We knew they would be direct and press. But today we didn't have the answers.

"A lot to look at, but a very quick turnaround. In the Premier League you can lose momentum at any point because there are a lot of tough games.

"The players are still together and ready to go."

Wolves face fellow strugglers Everton in a crunch clash towards the bottom on Wednesday.

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