Stoke City substitute Mame Biram Diouf has hit a late winner to deny Bournemouth a point and earn the Potters a first win of the Premier League season with a 2-1 victory at the Britannia Stadium.
The two sides came into the match with contrasting form; Stoke were still winless in six Premier League games while the Cherries had lost just once in their last six in all competitions.
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The game started at a good pace, but the flow was disrupted after just eight minutes when Bournemouth's top scorer Callum Wilson went down under an innocuous challenge from Philipp Wollscheid, and though the striker attempted to play on he had to be stretchered from the field minutes later with what looked like a serious knee injury.
Bojan finally tested Artur Boruc with a near-post effort which the goalkeeper held comfortably as Stoke tried to step up the tempo before Glenn Whelan's stinging effort had to be turned away.
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The Potters did find a breakthrough 13 minutes before the half-time whistle thanks to good work from Marko Arnautovic, who beat his marker to reach the byline before providing Jonathan Walters with a tap-in for his third goal of the season.
The visitors wasted a golden opportunity to level after 44 minutes when Marc Pugh robbed Glen Johnson and laid the ball off to Lee Tomlin, who turned the ball on to Matt Ritchie, but the midfielder's effort was somehow cleared off the line by Erik Pieters.
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With nearly 10 minutes of injury-time played as a result of Wilson's injury, Stoke nearly added a second when Arnautovic led a swift counter-attack from a Cherries corner, but the Austrian could only stab Pieters's cross wide.
The Potters started the second period as they had ended the first, pushing to double their advantage but they could not create a meaningful opportunity and began to sit back in the last 25 minutes, and Bournemouth levelled things up after 76 minutes.
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Ritchie's pull-back found Pugh on the edge of the box, and though the midfielder's shot was blocked, Dan Gosling controlled the loose ball and fired home to restore parity.
The Cherries' joy was to be short-lived, however, as Sylvain Distin missed Johnson's whipped cross and Diouf planted a header into the net to seal victory for the hosts.
Tom Nightingale
