That humiliation, under then-boss Scott Parker, came on the back of a 4-0 loss at Manchester City and 3-0 home defeat to Arsenal. Cherries are facing the same sequence of fixtures now, with O’Neil’s charges beaten 4-1 by City and 3-2 at the Gunners prior to hosting Jurgen Klopp’s Reds. Parker was sacked in the wake of that 9-0 loss against Liverpool and boss O’Neil, who was a coach on the day before soon stepping into the interim head coach role a few days later, believes he has pushed the team forwards.
Asked if that fateful day in August was the first thing he thought of ahead of facing Liverpool again,
Gary O’Neil said: “The 9-0 doesn’t come into my mind at all. Obviously we were in a very different place then. The lads will just prepare for this like it’s another game against a very, very good side. They’re in good form at the moment. Obviously have fantastic attacking threat. So it will be a tough ask, of course, but we approach the game like it’s a game we need to take three points from and that’s all.”
Having faced the top two sides in the division in the past two weeks, Cherries now host a resurgent Liverpool, who thrashed bitter rivals Manchester United 7-0 last weekend. They have climbed up to fifth in the table, unbeaten in five in the Premier League, without conceding. Asked if there are positives of pushing Arsenal so close last time out, leading 2-0 before losing to a 97th-minute Reiss Nelson strike, into playing another top side this weekend,
Gary O’Neil said: “I think looking at the three-game run of fixtures when we faced it last time – we went to the Etihad and I don’t even know if we had a shot, maybe had a shot or two and didn’t really lay a glove on them. Arsenal came here and we didn’t lay a glove on them. Obviously Anfield everyone knows about. And in my opinion we’ve just gone toe-to-toe with Manchester City and created a lot of chances, had the most shots against them (of anyone) all year. And we went to Arsenal and forced them to go past the allotted six minutes (of added time) to get their winner. So a big shift in how well we’re doing against these sides, but it’s still very difficult to put points on the table against them. But the lads understand that we’ve come on a long way, we just need to push on a bit further and make sure come May 28 (final game of the season), we’re the ones celebrating.”
