Gary O’Neil
Andreas Pereira gave the visitors the lead on 18 minutes at Vitality Stadium, with the hosts facing a smattering of boos when they headed in at half time behind.
But, sparked by the arrival of Marcus Tavernier off the bench, Cherries rallied after the restart.
The former Middlesbrough man’s brilliant goal quickly levelled the contest, before Dominic Solanke’s bundled finish secured a 2-1 victory, which lifts Cherries out of the relegation zone.
It is the second game in succession Cherries have started slowly, also falling behind early at Aston Villa last time out, before going on to lose 3-0.
Gary O’Neil said: “Any credit I get for the turnaround, I equally deserve criticism for the way the game started. It was very different. I was disappointed with the lads for the start at Aston Villa, for a lack of intensity and losing duels. There wasn’t anything tactical at Aston Villa, it was just we didn’t quite look like we were ready to go. Whereas today I could tell they were ready to go and we made some errors tactically. Very different, but of course you don’t want to start like that, giving a good side like Fulham a one-goal lead will cost you more often than not. We managed to wrestle it back and win the game today, but we need to perform well for the whole 90 obviously if we can. I didn’t expect us to start how we did. But to come back the way they did in a stadium that started to get a little bit flat and grumbly, 1-0 down at home in a winnable football match, to show the bravery, the determination, the togetherness and the quality to produce that from that moment was impressive from them.”
Asked what was said at half time to turn the game around,
Gary O’Neil explained: “The lads knew. Out of possession first half we were really poor. We prepped really hard on it and the lads were managing to make some errors in it. When you play against a good side who know their patterns and their rotations with the ball, if you’re slightly off out of possession they cause you problems, and they did. I was desperate to get to half-time, either obviously taking one of our chances or only being 1-0, because there was a bit of detail that needed to be given out of possession to help us. Managing to fix that at half time and then introducing two fresh faces to change the energy a little bit gave us some momentum. It looked like they weren’t getting up to things, it looked like they were a yard off the pace (in the first half). It was more tactical really. It was more them making mistakes. They were definitely trying and we managed to fix it. We gave Fulham a tough 45 minutes.”
