A return of 15 points from the last 24 available has seen Cherries rise up the league table, opening up a six-point gap over the bottom three at the time of writing.
Cherries would do their survival chances no harm with a positive result over West Ham on Sunday (kick-off 2pm), David Moyes’ Hammers visiting the Vitality.
In recent weeks numerous players have come from the fringes of the squad to playing key roles in recent victories, with O’Neil listing Welsh international Chris Mepham as one such example.
Ryan Christie and Jack Stephens have also endured spells out of the starting XI, whilst Joe Rothwell has returned from injury to become one of the side’s most consistent performers.
Asked whether he was impressed by the professionalism shown by his team,
Gary O’Neil said: “I think that’s the way the game is now. There’s a 25-man squad and you need your 25-man squad to be full of people that are all capable of stepping in. So of course, there are going to be certain lads that spend spells without playing as much as they’d like. It’s the way the game is. So, they’ve managed to stay ready. I think obviously Meps (Chris Mepham) was a good example the other day, where he had a couple of games outside of the squad. Kept himself ready to come in and put in two big performances. It’s important that everyone understands that you’re always involved regardless of whether you’re selected one week or not. Things can change very quickly and you need to keep yourself in a place that you’re ready to affect the games that you’re selected. I think the group are very good at that. I think we have a lot of leaders in the group who not only lead with voice but example. Adam Smith, of course, is one – he works his socks off every day. No matter what the result is, no matter how he’s feeling, no matter what we’re doing, he’ll always give everything. I spoke about it a lot already, but they’re a group that they don’t take too much managing. They’re very good around their approach to our work and approach to each game and how we respond to negatives and positives. So, of course we need to make sure we keep that up because we’ve still got six weeks to go.”
O’Neil is now able to trust on a wide array of players to come in when called upon, which the head coach believes could be key as his side face three relegation rivals in the next eight days. After hosting the Hammers, Cherries travel over the county border to face bottom side Southampton on Thursday, before returning back to Dorset to host Leeds United the following Sunday.
Gary O Neil added: “Back a few, maybe longer than a few weeks, when we were really short and we didn’t have enough senior players to fill the bench, going into a three-game week with that sort of group would have been tricky at that time. So now of course, there are players you can take in, take out. As you saw at the weekend, we’ve been able to take Adam Smith out and put in another really good player. So, three-game week, having more options is definitely a benefit.”
