Gary O’Neil said: “They were fierce. They still are fierce, I guess. My first ever reserve game was against Southampton for Portsmouth at Havant & Waterlooville and there was about 3,000 fans in. I was only 15, playing right-midfield against Francis Benali. And as soon as I tried to run in behind him from kick-off, he smashed me in the face with a cast on his arm. I’d come straight from maths, gone to play for Portsmouth’s reserves and got a cast smashed in my face. I was like ‘this is what senior football is going to be like’. And that was just a reserve game! There was some fierce games between Portsmouth and Southampton. Obviously a real memorable one where we won when (Lomano) LuaLua scored two at home. That was sort of a relegation battle as well, Portsmouth and Southampton were both involved in it. So some good fixtures. We’ve had some good games with them as well since I’ve been at Bournemouth. We’ve not managed to come out on top since I’ve been here yet, but we will try to change that on Thursday.”
Asked if he will have a word with Benali should he see him at St Mary’s tomorrow night,
Gary O’Neil added: “I’ve spoken to him before. I think we did some TV stuff together and he doesn’t actually remember it. But it definitely happened! If I bump into him, I’ll mention it again.”
Given his allegiance to Pompey, O’Neil could be on the receiving end of a hostile reception from the home fans.
Asked if he would welcome that ire to take some pressure off his players,
Gary O Neil said: “If the source of everyone’s focus could be on me and let my players go and perform then that would be a benefit, but I don’t see it like that. We’ve had two away games at Tottenham and Leicester recently. Leicester were fired up for it, home fans knew it was a big game for them and the lads managed to put in a performance. And a huge crowd at Tottenham, going 1-0 down and the place bouncing at that point and the lads managed to put in another real good performance. I don’t know what sort of reception I’ll get. It doesn’t bother me too much either way.”
Victory for Cherries tomorrow would push rock-bottom Saints closer towards relegation with just a month of the season remaining. But O’Neil insists that is not on his mind.
Gary O Neil said: “No feeling towards what it does to them at all. Just purely us and what it means to us. I wouldn’t get any more pleasure out of beating Southampton than I would out of beating anybody else. Hopefully we can go there and put another big result on the board for ourselves, the club, the players, the fans and if we do that, we’ll be in a really good place.”
