PHILIP Billing slammed Cherries fans for what he described as “unacceptable” booing of captain Lloyd Kelly during Cherries’ defeat to Burnley. Early in the second half of Cherries’ 4-2 FA Cup defeat to lower-league Burnley, a section of home supporters aimed their ire at Kelly as he looked for a pass from centre-back. Kelly was one of three players to drop out of the starting XI, but was introduced at half-time with Cherries 3-1 behind. The 24-year-old, who was making his 101st appearance for Cherries, took the armband from Adam Smith when coming on as a substitute, but could not help mastermind a comeback.
Speaking after the defeat,
Philip Billing said: “We are Premier League players and some of the mistakes are just simple details, passing out of play a few times myself as well. But that is something we have to do better. We just invited pressure on ourselves when we didn’t need to. We play like this against Burnley, we all know it’s unacceptable. We’ve got ears, we can hear the booing and I don’t mind that, we can take criticism, all of us, that’s a part of being a footballer and doing what we do. But today especially, I think it was unacceptable the way they were booing Lloydy, our captain, when he was on the ball. Some fans will maybe say they didn’t hear it, but we all heard it. For me, I can take it, I don’t mind them booing us, because we know we have to play better. But we are halfway through the season and when you hear our captain when he is on the ball getting booed by a lot of people, I don’t think that’s acceptable. If you’re backing the team, we know it can be frustrating as a spectator, but at the end of the day we’re on the pitch and we have to score goals, we have to create, that will come. But they have to understand when it becomes like that, it’s a domino effect, it translates onto the pitch. If they want the best for us, we know we have to create a noise, we have to create an atmosphere, we have to create an energy in the stadium. That’s what we’re trying to do. Sometimes we’re on a dip, like we are right now. But I believe in this squad, because we have good players. We’ve shown that, we’ve beaten good teams already. We just have to keep positive and keep going. It doesn’t rain forever. At one point we are going to get points, get a win. If it was the whole team after the game and they’re booing, I don’t mind. But when they’re just booing one player during the game when he’s on the ball, as a teammate, I don’t like to see that. It’s not fair. We need the fans to be our 12th man throughout the whole season. I’m probably going to get a bit of stick for this, but I can take it. Listening when I was on the pitch and I heard our captain be booed when he was on the ball, that I don’t think is acceptable. I always back my teammates, no matter what.”
Cherries have now lost five games in succession across league and cup competition.
